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Class H 
Book • VVW- 
Copyright )! 0 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 













/ 


The Secrets of the Japanese 
Government 


By a Student of Japan and the Japanese 





»1 



Published in 1915 by 

A. ROADMAKER & COMPANY 
Seattle, Wash. 

THE HERALD PRINT SEATTLE, WASH. 

Co^& 










Copyright, 1915 
By 

S. Jl. Smith 




* 

«4 ^ 

* 


/ 

V 

APR 19 1915 

0 

© Cl A 3 9 8 417 ^ 


Index to Contents 


Introductory 


11 


•/ 


CHAPTER I. 

THE SECRET RULERS OF JAPAN. 

-/ 

1. Japan has her own civilization. 33 

2. Shintoism the State religion. ^ 

3. No religious moral teaching in Japan. 35. 

4. Character of ancient Japan’s lower classes. 35 

5. Negative effect of moral teachings of Confucius. ^ 

6. Effect of Buddhism on Japanese. 42 

7. Five ancient female Japanese. Rulers favored Buddhism. 44 

8. Buddhism Japanified .t—.. 45 

9. Sexual immorality not checked by Buddhism. 45 

10. Buddha priests in politics of Old Japan. 47 

11. Character of common people. 48^ 

12. Shinto religion taught Japanese their only great virtues. 49^ 

13. The Shinto Cult. 50 

14. Priestly functions of Emperors of New Japan. 53 

15. Fujiwara Family Usurps Mikado’s Functions. 54 

16. Sexual debaucheries of the Mikado of Old Japan. 56 

17. How deceitfulness became a national vice. 57 

18. .• Ancient dual form of government. 58 

19r~ The wars between the ruling families. 60 

2QU; Mikado became degenerates. 62 

21.. End of the civil wars, and peace established in 1600. 64 

22. * The Tokugawa peace-era... 65 

23. ' Effect of the Tokugawa peace-era. 67 

24. The Court of Mikado Komci hostile to white foreigners. 71 

25. Condition of the Mikado. 74 

26. Priests, Courtiers, and Samurai allied against foreigners and 

Shoguns since 1853...,. 77 

27. A period of lawlessness from 1860 to ’68. 79 

28. Life of the low-class Samurai in the capital in 1862. 82 

29. Death of Shogun Igemoshi, and Mikado Komei... 83 

30. Keiki, the last Shogun, a patriot and prince of peace...... 84 

31. Japan’s great governmental fraud initiated. 87 

32. Samurai commit high treason by taking possession of boy- 

Mikado, Mutsu Hito .......... 90 

33. The new government an Oligarchy of Samurai.„....— 90 




































Index —Continued 


Page 

34. The fraud underlying the present government of Japan. 91 

35. Samurai not loyal to former Mikado. 95 

36. Keiki patriotically avoids hostilities...- 97 

37. Keiki’s public statement about his resignation. 98 

38. Keiki willing to arbitrate, gets into battle, is betrayed and 

defeated ..._. 100 

39. Men in power, as new Rulers, sentence Shogun to death.....102 

40. New Constitution of 1868 makes Emperor slave of Shinto Cult 103 

CHAPTER II. 

JAPAN’S SECRET ANTI-FOREIGN AND WAR POLICY. 

1. The life of Mikado Mutsu Hito ruined. 105 

2. The new government causes civil war. 110 

3. Keiki refuses to engage in the civil war. Ill 

4. Last Shogun retires to a Buddhist monastery. 113 

5. Keiki in 1902, made “Prince Tokugawa”... 114 

6. Count Okuma forges the history of Japan of 1867 and ’68. 116 

7. Japanese government forged, in 1883, historical events of 1867 

and ’68..!.. 121 

8. The victorious war of the new government in ’69. 125 

9. Policy of the government during the war. 126 

10. Radical change in domestic politics after the civil war. 130 

11. Sudden friendly attitude of leading Samurai to foreigners. 132 

12. Historians cannot explain great change of 1869. r . 138 

/ 13. Japan’s secret anti-foreign policy ... 135 

14. Samurai deceitful enough to adopt such a policy. 137 

15. Murderers and incendiaries among the “Restoration States- 

men” . 144 

\16j Secret policy considered as an act of Japanese patriotism. 147 

17. The government invited foreigners to come to Japan. 149 

18. Japan did not accept Western civilization. 151 

19. Popular opposition to the government’s friendliness to the for¬ 

eigners . 153 

20. Mikado’s Advisers distrusted by masses of Samurai. 155 

21. Natives and foreigners conjecture existence of secret gov¬ 

ernment policy . 157 

22. Government tires of foreign influence in Japan. 160 

“Bushido” not Japan’s code of morals..... 162 































Index —Continued 
CHAPTER III. 

JAPAN’S CONSTITUTION A POLITICAL FRAUD, AND 
MEANS TO FURTHER THE GOVERNMENT’S 
SECRET WAR-POLICIES. 


1. The government makes Japan a military and naval power. 178 

2. Satsuma and Choshiu Samurai control the government. 179 

3. The Constitution a masterpiece of Samurai cunning. 187 

4. The Original Constitution not the legal one..... 192 

5. The Constitution creates no popular government. 195 

(^6) Japan’s government a military despotism. 197 

7. The Constitution deceived foreign nations about Japan.. 200 

8. The condition of the Emperor in 1895. 201 

9. Undeniable proof that Privy Council rules, and Emperor at- 

tends to Shinto rites... 208 

H).\ Japanese deceived about government by Shinto belief in Em¬ 
peror’s divinity... 210 

11. Official press deceives natives and foreigners about Emperor’s 

condition . 211 

12. All foreign nations deceived by Japanese publicity work. 213 

13. Mutsu Hito’s funeral proves Shintoism to rule Japan. 224 

14. In foreign countries Emperor celebrated as modern Monarch 227 


CHAPTER IV. 

THE ANTI-FOREIGN POLICY OF JAPAN. ITS PRESENT 

PURPOSES. 


1. Secret policy of 1869 carried out successfully up to date. 231 

2. Port Arthur’s fall, and its lesson to the foreign nations. 234 

3. The truth about the Nogi tragedy. 238 

4. The Japanese the most tax-ridden people... 245 

5. Japan’s present taxation is ruinous.247 

6. Signs of hostility among the people against the government.... 250 

7. Japan’s war preparations . 255 

8. Japan will have war, but not with Russia...268 

9. Japan wants to fight the United States. 272 

10. Why Japan’s ruling classes hate the white race peoples. 275 

11. Japanese nobility hated Christians of Europe... 288 

























Index —Concluded 

Page 

12. History repeats itself..... 290 

13. Low class people originally friendly to Americans. 291 

14. American immigration laws injure Japanese laborers. 292 

15. Japanese want war and revenge... 293 

16. Japan’s future American Province.— 295 


CHAPTER V. 

THE JAPANESE INVASION: AND THE RACE IDEALS OF 
THE RULING CLASS. 

1. The invasion can be prevented. 297 

2. How Japan’s Rulers desire to utilize the European war. 302 

— Japan must conquer new territory or face national bankruptcy 

or revolution... 305 

3. Official American information about Alaska. 307 

4. Japanese war-spies in the United States. 314 

5. Japan will exploit Alaska thoroughly.. 316 

6. Can Alaska be reconquered by the United States?. 318 

7. The Race Ideals of the Ruling Class of Japan. 325 

8. How Japan will help her Oriental neighbors. 328 

9. Why the Yellow Race would rule the world.. 331 

10. White race civilization means, progress.338 

11. Japanese civilization means destruction. 339 

12. Japanese newspapers betray present political situation of Japan 342 

13. How Japan will accomplish her Race Ideals. 346 

14. Conclusion . 355 






















DEDICATION. 


Since 1869, when the usurpers of the supreme govern¬ 
mental power of Japan had been successful in the civil war, 
and brought about the “Great Change”, from savage Samurai 
hostility against the foreign “barbarians” to sudden great 
friendliness,—since that time the people of the United States 
have, partly from self-suggestion, but principally through Jap¬ 
anese deferential politeness and the “philosophy of falsehood” 
been kept under an hypnotic spell in which they believe to have 
aided a people of an inferior race in becoming a modern civi¬ 
lized nation, and thereby earned the gratitude and friendship 
of the people and government of Japan. 

To dispel that delusion, to replace it by a knowledge of 
the truth about the Japanese government and its policies, and 
to show the danger threatening the United States from the 
latter, is the purpose of this book, which is herewith dedicated 
to the American people. The Author withholds his name lest, 
through its publication in Japan, his friends there who have, 
in no manner, contributed to the contents of the book, become 
the victims of Samurai revenge. 

A Student of Japan and the Japanese. 












































































■ 




















v 




























































































































THE SECRETS OF THE JAPANESE GOVERN¬ 
MENT. 


Introductory. 

Up to the spring of 1913, when the alien-land bill was 
introduced in the Legislature of California, which purposed 
to prevent the Japanese from buying land in that State, and 
when the government of Japan objected to the Federal Au¬ 
thorities in Washington against the legalization of that bill, 
the people of the United States, excepting those of the Pa¬ 
cific Coast, did not believe that a war between their country 
and Japan was a possibility. The President, his Cabinet, and 
Congress have, since the rise of Japan as a military and naval 
power, always been convinced that the government of that 
country had none but the friendliest intentions toward the 
American neighbor across the Ocean, who had aroused the 
secluded people of the “Land of the Rising Sun” from their 
mediaeval sleep, and caused them to become a modern nation. 
But the people of the Pacific Slope have, long since, differed 
from that opinion, and believed that a war with Japan is not 
only a possibility, but a probability that may turn into a real¬ 
ity at any time. 

Since the passage of that California land bill the objec¬ 
tion of the Japanese government to it has become so urgent 
that the Washington Authorities could not fail to remember, 
regretfully, that the Pacific Coast States and Territories are 
not in a condition to repel an invasion of their extended 
coasts; a circumstance which makes the possibility of a war 
with Japan a factor that must be taken into consideration in 
the negotiations yet to be held with that country’s govern¬ 
ment. The Hon. Francis B. Loomis who, during his twelve 
years of diplomatic service to the United States, has been in 
Japan, and is familiar with the temper of her people and gov- 


12 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


ernment, made, in September ’13, in a Pacific Coast City, at 
a public occasion, the following statement: 

“As regards the Pacific Coast, the most important 
issue, by and far, excepting not even the'Panama Canal, is 
the relationship of the Empire of Japan and the United 
States of America. The difficulties between the two coun¬ 
tries, growing out of the California dispute, are far from 
settled, and may be said to be dangerous. In case of war 
the West would suffer, not the East.” 

In view of this humiliating situation, of the United 
States, an Empire covering half of a large Continent, and 
having a population of hundred millions of inhabitants, being 
threatened with war by a country of Asia, which, forty years 
ago, had only an area of 150,000 square miles, 6,000 less 
than the State of California, and a population of thirty-four 
millions of souls, and neither an army nor a navy, it must 
be asked: “How was it possible that the overwhelming 
majority of the American people who rank in intelligence 
below no other nation on Earth, and their highest national 
officials, including half a thousand members of Congress, have 
not become aware of this approaching danger, until it may 
be said to be a case of ‘Hannibal ante portas,’ the enemy 
before our gates?” 

The Pacific Coast people have done their best to make 
the danger known throughout the country, especially in the 
halls of Congress, but in vain. They were, by the Eastern 
people, considered to be illiberal, selfish, and led by labor agi¬ 
tators. A grievous error! California, the state preferen¬ 
tially chosen by the Japanese as a home, was threatened in 
her very existence by the Asiatic immigrants, an assertion 
that is easily proven. 

Frugality is, generally speaking, a virtue. But the frugal 
life of one people is not always adapted to the wants of oth¬ 
ers, but may elsewhere be detrimental. That is the case 
between Japan and the United States. According to statis- 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 13 

tics taken by the Royal Statistical Society of England whose 
people have, since the Russian-Japanese war, supplied the 
government and industries of Japan with loans of hundreds 
of millions of dollars and are, therefore, interested in her 
economical conditions, the annual income of the average 
Japanese farmer in 1890 was 273 Yen ($136.50 in American 
money), and his expenses amounted to 246 Yen ($123.00), 
leaving for the support of the farmer and his family 27 Yen 
($13.50) a year. The wars with China in 1894-95, ana, ten 
years later, with Russia, brought the Japanese people great 
victories, much military glory, and a heavy indebtedness. 
The cost of living was, by 1909, doubled, and the tax on rice- 
land which furnishes the people’s principal food product ad¬ 
vanced 278J4 per cent. How, then, did the farmers thrive 
in that year? The same statistical board gives the total in¬ 
come of the average farmer at 567 Yen ($283.50), and his 
expenditures at 538 Yen ($269.00), leaving for his and his 
family’s support, for the whole year, 29 Yen ($14.50), an 
advance during 18 years of two Yen ($1.00), while the cost 
of living had been doubled. 

But that is not the whole truth about the condition oi 
the Japanese farmers. The statistics show that on the small 
farms of 5 Tan (a Tan like J4 acre), which form 37.60 
per cent of the Japanese farms, the taxes almost eat up the 
income, driving the farmers, from year to year, with every 
crop they raise, more into debt and starvation. Hence their 
desire to leave their high taxed homes in the land of earth¬ 
quakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, hurricanes, 
dense fogs, and electrical discharges, and emigrate to the 
earthly paradise on the American Coast of the Pacific, the 
land of plenty, and of the most even tempered climate in the 
world. There the “frugal” Asiatics, not needing the neces¬ 
sities of the American workmen, can easily underbid them 
and take their places, and with the money earned lease farm- 


14 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

land and establish a ruinous competition to the American 
farm owners. 

The Japanese government is not ignorant of the condi¬ 
tion of its small farm owners. But the officials told the 
complaining, tax-ridden farmers, that, “under the former 
government of the Tokugawa Shoguns, the taxes levied upon 
the people had often amounted to 50 per cent of their in¬ 
come, while the present taxes (in 1912), only consumed 35 
per cent of it. High taxation was not what the farmers 
suffered from, but they were behind the times, in not using 
modern means and modes of agriculture, and consequently, 
not obtaining the best and largest possible crops from their 
land.” But the farmers were not offered any financial aid for 
buying modern farming machinery, nor given any advice how 
they could get it. 

It is not improbable that the government purposed to let 
these small class farmers emigrate to the United States, to 
create Japanese farming colonies there whose members would 
send their savings home, while their deserted homesteads 
were joined together to make larger farms whose owners 
could better afford to pay the high taxes. Statistics show 
how quickly the land holdings of the Japanese have increased 
in California. In 1907 their deeded land amounted to 12,726 
acres, besides which they had leased 117,000 acres. In 1912, 
they owned 26,571 acres, and had leased 217,182, an increase 
of deeded land at the rate of 108 per cent, and of rented 
land at 80 per cent, in short five years. 

This looks to be an insignificant acreage, compared to 
the 156,000 square miles contained in the whole state; but 
what an enormous part of the agricultural and horticultural 
produce of California is already being reaped by the Japanese 
owners and renters of that acreage, is apparent from the 
following statistical data. They furnished, in 1912, 33 per 
cent of the fruit production of the State; 40 per cent of the 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


15 


potatoes; 43 of the vegetables; and 83 of the strawberries, 
for all of which they received, as near as it could be calcu¬ 
lated, twenty-one and a quarter million dollars. And since 
the savings out of this earning, which are not invested in 
more land, are sent to Japan where a great deal of them is 
paid to the government as taxes, and helps to increase the 
army and navy, it can well be understood that the Japanese 
Authorities are very anxious to have not only California, but 
also Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, and even Alaska 
kept open for the Japanese immigration. 

What would become of these American States, if their 
land, the chief means of production, were to get into the 
hands of the “frugal” Japanese? That question has been 
answered by the condition of the industries of Japan after 
having been 36 years under her present, so-called, modern 
government. It is described in a literary work entitled: 
<e Japan, described and illustrated by the Japanese. Written 
by Eminent Authorities and Scholars” It was published in 
1904, by leading men of the Japanese government. The 
authors say: 

“The Japanese have proved that they can assimilate 
not only the forms but also the spirit of foreign military 
systems. On the other hand, a visit to their factories 
shows machinery treated carelessly, emyloyes so numerous 
that they impede rather than expedite business, and a gen¬ 
eral lack of precision, regularity, and earnestneess that 
characterize successful enterprises in Europe or America. 
"Achievement in one direction, and comparative failure in 
another, where the factors making for success are similar 
in each, indicates, not incapacity in the latter case, but de¬ 
fects of standard and experience.” 

That statement, coming from leading statesmen and offi¬ 
cials, is highly important; because it acknowledges that, in 
1904, nearly 40 years after the establishment of the present 
government, the industries of the country were in a bad 
shape, in fact, only in an infantile stage. They gave no 


16 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


reason for this state of affairs. But an European statesman. 
Dr. Dernburg, the former Colonial Minister of Germany, did, 
who in 1911 visited Japan and China, to ascertain whether 
these countries would, in the near future, be able, through 
their cheap labor, to make ruinous competition to the Euro¬ 
pean industrial countries. He reported to his government, 
“that Japan was heavily in debt, and the taxes consequently 
very high; the natural resources of the country not properly 
utilized, its exports, therefore, very much limited, and its 
industries not any better; because the largest classes of the 
people were either too poor, or did not possess the desire to 
use the many necessities of life zvhich form the basis of anJ 
healthy home industry ” He pointed to the scant clothing of 
the people, to their tent-like houses, to the want of furniture, 
and, finally, to the absence of talent in the people for indus¬ 
trial labor on modern lines. 

This shows that the frugal Japanese are not consuming 
enough to support an home industry which is necessary in 
every modern country, unless its people want to live like 
half-savages, and not like the modern people of Europe and 
America. The Japanese farm workers will, like the Chinese, 
continue to live in their American homes as they do in Japan. 
Their race pride induces them to do so. That means that, 
while the Japanese are good producers (although not better 
than the white race workmen), they are not good consum¬ 
ers, unlike the Americans; and will not foster the industries 
of the country. Is it to be expected that the American pop¬ 
ulation will submit to it, that such an immigration ruin the 
industries of their state, and render it unfit for white race 
people to live there? If they did so, they would show a lower 
degree of intelligence than is compatible with good citizen¬ 
ship. But the people of the Pacific Coast know better; hence, 
since years, their clamor against Asiatic immigration. 

There are other matters relating to the Japanese, on 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


17 


which the Pacific Coast people also differ with those of the 
Fast, and the Federal Authorities. They have noticed that 
while the Japanese, in the beginning of their immigration to 
the United States, were polite, respectful, and well behaving 
toward the Americans, they have, since Japan’s victorious 
war with Rusisa, become overbearing and bellicose. They 
demand political rights reserved by the American law to the 
white race, and threaten that Japan will not hesitate to get 
these rights by war, if she cannot get them for her subjects 
by diplomacy. The Eastern people and the Authorities in 
Washington, D. C., have, so far, considered these threats as 
the idle boasting of Japanese coolies who were angered for 
being ill-treated by American workmen. But the Pacific 
Coast people have noticed, since the Russian-Japanese war, 
Japan’s continued military and naval preparations, with no 
enemy in view; they have read, time and again, that the 
insufficiency of the Pacific Coast defenses invites an hostile 
invasion; and they have concluded that the U. S. government, 
especially Congress, injudiciously disregards these symptoms, 
and neglects to give the Pacific States the necessary military 
and naval protection. 

It is true that, very often, the Japanese representatives in 
the United States and the officials in Japan have given assur¬ 
ances of the friendliness of their government to the American 
one; and occasional visitors of high rank, almost never neglect 
to speak of the mutual cordial relations between the two coun¬ 
tries. Thus did Admiral Togo in August, 1911, when cross¬ 
ing the North American Continent, on his way home from 
Europe, repeatedly express the hope that there would soon 
be an arbitration treaty concluded between Japan and the 
United States; for which friendly expressions extraordinary 
honors were shown him at his departure. But, notwith¬ 
standing all this friendly “talk,” it is a fact that the boister¬ 
ous language and violent threats of excited Japanese laborers 


18 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


were simply the echo of similar expressions in more polite, 
but just as passionate words of a number of the highest 
Japanese officials, including the Emperor, published in print, 
and in the English language, that the outside world could 
read them. 

It was in 1904, when the first Japanese victories over 
Russia, for which the smiling but wily “little brown men” 
had prepared themselves during 31 years quietly but energet¬ 
ically, had caused the leading men of their country to fall 
into a spell of boastfulness which the Japanese are apt to 
indulge in at extraordinary occasions. Of the books that 
were, at that time, published, by order of the government, so 
as to inform the white race nations, what a great race the 
Japanese were, what they had already accomplished, and that 
they were striving for still greater achievements, there is one 
entitled “Japan by the Japanese.” It was published by an 
English author, Mr. Alfred Stead, but each of its 32 chapters 
had been written by one of Japan’s leading statesmen, gen¬ 
erals, admirals, financiers and scholars; the first one contain¬ 
ing a couple of official “rescripts” signed by the Emperor. 
Lest the foreign readers of that book fail to draw the intend¬ 
ed information from it, its meaning had been condensed in a 
preface which is herewith copied verbatim: 

“Japan has the advantage that the people ean think 
as thoroughly as do the Orientals, and act on the result of 
her thoughts as decidedly as the Occidentals. 

“To no other race in the zvorld, as far as can be seen 
at the present moment, have both these gifts been given. 
And, therefore, it may safely be said that the future of 
this remarkable nation, equipped zvith every element of 
perfection, pulsating zvith loyalty and patriotism, and thor¬ 
ough in every detail, cannot fail to be brilliant. 

“Just what it is that Japan will accomplish, nobody 
who is not of Japanese blood can foretell.” 

Had that publication been made some thousands of 
years ago, perhaps by Rameses, the Great, of Egypt, or by 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


19 


Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, it might be read with a smile at 
the self-conceit great rulers possessed in those remote ages. 
But as it comes from the Emperor and the leading repre¬ 
sentatives of a nation which has, of late, developed itself 
into one of the greatest military and naval powers of the 
world, it must be seriously considered by every people of 
Fmrope and America having interests on the Pacific Coast, 
and especially by the United States, one of Japan’s nearest 
neighbors. For, this preface is a manifesto which says, in the 
first place, that the Japanese are the most superior race of 
men now living, being ‘"equipped with every element of per¬ 
fection.” That is the “chip on the shoulder” of the Japanese 
Ruler which gives his government at any time it may choose, 
through some labor trouble between white and Japanese work¬ 
men, or the immigration laws of a foreign country concern¬ 
ing Asiatics, or other similar causes, an opportunity to attack 
the nation against which Japan’s belligerent plans have been 
directed. 

The manifesto further says that the great Japanese race 
has “a brilliant future” before it, through some achievement 
which is a secret to all the world, but which, in due time, will 
be performed. If Japan be justly entitled to such claim, she 
certainly must be able to show some accomplishments during 
her past history, which promise such a future. But the his¬ 
tory of Japan, from the creation of the Empire to the time 
of its modernization, teaches that her people have, in their 
literature, art, industry, architecture, science, agriculture, and 
music been the pupils of China and Korea, and excelled their 
teachers only in a few branches of unimportant civilizatory 
labor, namely, hard pottery, lacquer work, the manufacture 
of fine silk goods, and decorative metal work. This shows 
plainly that Japan has, in all her industrial, agricultural and 
art work, her science and literature, produced nothing in the 
past that promises “brilliant accomplishments” in the future. 


20 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


But there is one field, although not of useful work, upon 
which the Japanese have excelled from the mythical age of 
their history to the present time, and that is on the battle 
field, as fighters and conquerors. Fighting has been then 
main employment since more than 2,000 years, when not 
against other people, then among themselves. The Malay, 
Indian, Tartar, and Mongolian blood running in their veins 
has made them fighters by nature, so that they only needed 
instruction in the modern military and naval sciences, to make 
their army and navy equal to the best of the Western nations; 
and the present government has, during its short existence, 
shown that Japan of today is as willing to use her army and 
navy for her glory and aggrandizement, as the Mongolian 
Tartar race which, according to Japanese historians, con¬ 
quered, under Jimmu Tenno, in 667 B. C., Japan, always has 
been in ancient times. She has acquired, since 1873, when 
her modern army was organized, by war, intimidation, or de¬ 
ceit, the 33 islands of the Loochoo Group, the 25 Bonin, and 
the uncounted Pescatores Islands, Formosa, part of Saghalien, 
the Liao-Tung Peninsula with Port Arthur, and Korea, near¬ 
ly doubling the area of Old Japan. And to these new pos¬ 
sessions a part of Manchuria, already nearly stolen from 
China, will soon be added. 

Japan has thus, of late years, made achievements in ac¬ 
quiring new territory, by means of her modern army and 
navy, and in that line she may certainly expect to have “a 
brilliant future.” But, as the preface-manifesto says, “What 
Japan will accomplish in the future, nobody but of Japanese 
blood can foretell.” What further wars Japan will com¬ 
mence, after having, during the last eighteen years, van¬ 
quished the two most collosal Empires on Earth, China, the 
greatest ancient country of Asia, and Russia, the greatest 
modern one of Europe; and what further territories she is 
planning to acquire by war or treachery, is a great national 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 21 

Japanese secret which will not be disclosed by the govern¬ 
ment until it is ready to surprise and strike its new victims, as 
it has done with China, Russia, and Korea. 

If the United States were to be selected by Japan as her 
next foe, the Pacific Coast States would be the battleground, 
and suffer immense loss of property, also of life; all of which 
could be prevented, or at least, confined to naval warfare, if 
the coast defenses were sufficiently strong. Congress, repre¬ 
senting the opinion of the whole Union, except the few states 
of the Pacific Slope, has, for years, tied the hands of the 
government so that it could not respond to the clamor of the 
Pacific Coast people. Nor have the respective cabinet minis¬ 
ters and military and naval authorities warned the President 
and Congress of any impending danger. That the general 
belief in Japan’s friendship and peacefulness was an error, 
is now known, if not throughout the country, certainly in 
Washington, D. C. And that this error may be the cause of 
war being forced upon the American people, which threatens 
to be, in the beginning, humiliating and destructive, and will, 
in the end, cost billions of dollars, cannot be disputed. 

But there is danger of another, even more egregious 
error being made in the national capital and by public opin¬ 
ion. It is the effort to avoid hostilities with Japan by per¬ 
suading or coercing California to abandon her anti-Japanese 
legislation. For, if Japan should declare war against the 
United States, it will not, as is generally believed, be done on 
account of the California anti-land law, but the latter shall 
serve Japan only as a pretext. The truth is, that the war 
will come anyhow! That has been decided upon by the Rul¬ 
ing Powers of Japan, years ago, and for entirely different 
reasons. But if they can, before carrying out their ulterior 
purposes, persuade or browbeat the American government, 
into allowing Japan to colonize hundreds of thousands of her 
well drilled military reserves, or veterans of the Russian war, 


22 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


in the Pacific Coast States, as farm laborers or in other em¬ 
ployments, it will be worthjtrying to do so, for the advantages 
thereby to be gained by Japan, in the coming war, will be 
immense. And her government has proven, during the last 
decade, in its dealings with Korea, that it does not shrink ^ 
back from violating the most sacred trust, nor the most bind¬ 
ing promises made, when it has determined to rob a friendly 
nation. There is such a strong warning to the United States 
contained in the fate of Korea, that it is necessary to relate 
the story of that country’s ruin. 

This former Empire, of more than two-thirds the size 
of Japan, had, since the commencement of history, enjoyed 
her independence, but paid, during some centuries, a tribute 
to either China or Japan, in order not to be disturbed. Soon 
after Japan had entered upon her modern career, she com¬ 
menced to take a special interest in Korea, and, in 1895, se¬ 
cured her exemption from paying any tribute to China, as 
one of the peace conditions of the Japan-Chinese war. In 
1904, when Japan went to war with Russia, some of her 
troops were landed in Korea, under the pretext of preventing 
the Russians from getting a foothold and staying there. And 
to convince the Koreans of the friendly intentions of the 
Japanese government, the latter offered the Korean Emperor 
a treaty of friendship which he and his people gladly accept¬ 
ed from their race relatives, in preference to England’s offer 
to protect Korea against any Russian aggressions. The three 
first and main Articles of the treaty with Japan read as 
follows: 

“I. For the purpose of maintaining d permanent and 
solid friendship between Japan and Korea, and firmly es¬ 
tablishing peace in the “Far East,” the Imperial Govern¬ 
ment of Korea shall place full confidence in the Imperial 
Government of Japan, and adopt the advice of the latter in 
regard to improvements in administration. 

II. The Imperial governmenet of Japan shall in a 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


23 


spirit of firm friendship, secure the safety and repose of 
the Imperial Household of Korea. 

III. The Imperial Government of Japan definitely 
guarantees the independence and territorial integrity of the 
Korean Empire.” 

After both powers had accepted and signed thie treaty, 
the Koreans were highly elated over their secured peace and 
independence, and gave Japan, after she had concluded peace 
with Russia, full power to reform the Korean administra¬ 
tion. The Japanese immediately commenced that work by 
disbanding the antiquated Korean military forces, and em¬ 
ploying their own modern troops in their place. They re¬ 
formed many administrative branches, and put Japanese and 
friendly Koreans in the newly established offices throughout 
the country. But one day, Marquis Ito, the representative 
of the Japanese government, deposed, without any cause 
whatever, the Korean Emperor, and took, as governor, pos¬ 
session of the vacated Imperial Court and throne. The as¬ 
tonished and indignant monarch who had thus, under Japan’s 
mask of friendship, been robbed of his throne and country, 
went shortly afterwards to The Hague Peace Conference in 
Europe, which was then in session, stated what Japan had 
done, and asked the foreign nations for help and justice. But 
Japan was at that time already so strong a world power that 
neither the European, nor the American governments cared 
to incur her hostility for the sake of the helpless Ex-Ruler 
of a far-away East Asiatic country. The request for redress 
of the Korean Emperor was completely ignored. But the 
Japanese government was not through with its plans yet. It 
waited a few years more, and, in 1910, notified the foreign 
powers of Europe and America that the Empire of Korea had 
ceased to exist, and would henceforth be a province of Japan. 
Again none of the foreign powers objected. 

Thus, by the grossest deceit and treachery practiced dur- 


24 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

ing six years Japan had, by inveigling the Korean Emperor 
into trusting in her friendship and thereby losing the protec¬ 
tion of England, obtained, without firing a shot or losing a 
soldier, possession of the Empire of a friend and ally, a 
country of 100,000 square miles, containing large tracts of 
vacant fertile land, and rich natural resources, especially gold, 
all of which Japan needs and, therefore, greedily grasped. 
But that is not the worst misfortune that befell Korea. She 
not only lost her independence, but her people are also robbed 
of their nationality, religion, and civilization. Their two mil¬ 
lions of children are taught in the Japanified schools the doc¬ 
trines of the Shinto Cult, and to revere the “divine” Emperor 
of Japan, through whose government’s treacherous policy the 
Korean people had lost their national existence. And thou¬ 
sands of young Koreans are drafted every year into the 
Japanese army and navy to fight Japan’s battles in her future 
wars of conquest. One remarkable fact must yet be stated, 
which is connected with the downfall of Korea. There is no 
doubt that in all the Japanese government and newspaper 
offices, and to many private persons it was well known that 
the treaty with Korea had only been made with a view of be¬ 
traying and annexing that country. But nothing leaked out 
to warn the Koreans who believed firmly in the sincerity of 
their Japanese ally. Japanese deceitfulness, the main char¬ 
acteristic of the zvholc race, worked, during the whole six 
years of the betrayal of the Koreans, to perfection. It is 
working in the same manner, also since years, against the 
United States, zvithout the overwhelming majority of the 
American people and their national government having the 
least idea that they are being grossly deceived by the <c friend- 
ly” Japanese government. 

The cause of this peculiar political phenomenon of a 
large, highly intelligent nation being led astray by an half 
civilized people is not difficult to be explained. The Ameri- 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 25 

an government has no experience in diplomatic plotting and 
scheming. “Uncle Sam” is sometimes brusque, and at other 
times careless, but always upright and honorable, never cun¬ 
ning or deceiving. And so are the men whom the President 
and Congress select as representatives of the American peo¬ 
ple in foreign countries. And, being honorable men, they 
expect the foreign officials they have to deal with to be the 
same. Thus, after the United States had introduced the 
Japanese to the nations of the world, had taught them mod¬ 
ern sciences, arts, trades, inventions, and the Western civ¬ 
ilization, and the Japanese claimed to have become a civilized 
people, the Americans believed they had, certainly adopted 
the two great basic principles of the Christian civilization, 
justice and truthfulness, and were endeavoring to live up to 
them in private, and public life. But that honorable and con¬ 
fiding trust of the American people in the honor and truth¬ 
fulness of the Japanese was an error, and is today the cause, 
of the United States being threatened with an humiliating 
political situation that may end in war. For the Japanese 
people have not adopted the altruistic tenets of the Western 
Civilization; and nobody less so than the class of men who 
control the government, and who, instead of being guided in 
their dealings with the foreign nations by justice and truth¬ 
fulness, are practicing the “Philosophy of Falsehood ,” which 
forms the base of the Japanese civilization today as it did 
centuries ago. 

As a preliminary proof of this statement an extract from 
an English-Japanese source may serve, a literary work, en¬ 
titled “Japan, Its History, Art and Literature,” by Capt. F. 
Brinkley, who also acted as “Editor” of the before mentioned 
work, “Japan, described and illustrated by the Japanese.” In 
the preface of the latter publication, Baron Kaneko Kentaro 
introduced Mr. Brinkley to the foreign reading public in the 
following terms: 


26 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


There is no one better equipped to write or edit a 
work of this kind than Capt. F. Brinkley, who has spent 
40 years of his life in the Orient, a great portion of that 
time as Correspondent of the London great newspapers, 
and as Editor of the ‘Japanese Mail/ It gives me the 
greatest pleasure to recommend him to all serious stu¬ 
dents of Japan’s history.” 

To make it certain beyond doubt that nothing prejudicial 
to Japan’s new government and its ruling class can come 
from Capt. Brinkley, it may also be mentioned, that his 
newspaper, the “Japanese Mail,” is subsidized by the Jap¬ 
anese government, and that its owner and editor is, conse¬ 
quently, very close to the Ruling Powers. In describing, in 
his own book, the main characteristics of the Japanese, espe¬ 
cially of the former military class, the Samurai, he says: 

“The history of humanity shows that moral principles 
have never been allowed to interfere greatly with the con¬ 
summation of ambitious designs. No contradiction of that 
experience is to be found in the story of the Samurai. If 
loyalty and fidelity were conspicuously displayed by him 
in a subordinate position, he sometimes violated both with¬ 
out hesitation for the sake of grasping power or climbing 
to social eminence. There are almost innumerable exam¬ 
ples of men plotting against those to whom they owed the 
foundations of their fortune, or betraying them that trust¬ 
ed them. 

“The expedients resorted to by combatants and polit¬ 
ical rivals, during the Military Epoch, evinced a liberal 
rendering of the principal that ‘everything is fair in war.’ 
It may be broadly stated that moral principles received no 
respect whatever from framers of political plots, or plan¬ 
ners of ‘ruses-de-guerre.’ In the military instructions the 
Samurai adopted from the Chinese, it is laid down that the 
spy is the highest product of skilled strategy, and five 
varieties are minutely described, the greatest expert being 
he that, simulating disaffection to the master he really 
serves, wins the confidence of the enemy, and, living in 
their midst, deceives them into adopting a suicidal course. 
Probably no other nation continued throughout so many 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


27 


centuries entirely unacquainted with public controversy or 
debate in any form, whether religious, yhilisophical, or 
political. There zvas, in fact, nothing to educate the spirit 
of fair play which is the inz'ariable companion of a loz’e of 
truth. 

“Industrial veracity never existed in Japan. Neither 
commerce, nor manufacturing enterprises acquired at any 
time sufficient importance to demonstrate the injurious 
effects of want of mutual confidence and the value of strict 
fidelity to engagemenets. Political veracity remained sim¬ 
ilarly undeveloped. 

<( According to the viezv entertained by the Samurai in 
the Military Epoch, and <( still prevalent throughout the 
Japanese nation, the obligation to reveal facts in their 
nakedness, is relative. If it is evident that misfortune will 
be entailed or distress caused by absolute frankness of 
declaration, concealment, or even misrepresentation, is con¬ 
sidered justifiable. Truth is not set upon a pedestal above 
the sorrozvs and sufferings of existence, or even above the 
cares and worries of every day life. That is the r Philoso¬ 
phy of Falsehood’ in Japan today, as it zvas in the Military 
EpochP 

It is apparent that the writer of the above statements 
has endeavored to explain away, or at least mitigate, the 
viciousness of the Japanese “Philosophy of Falsehood,” but 
he. nevertheless, shows that it is the antithesis of the ethics 
of the Western civilization. In this characteristic of the 
Samurai he is lenient when he calls them treacherous, dis¬ 
loyal, perfidious, mendacious, and unscrupulous plotters of 
political schemes. The history of Old Japan proves them to 
have been, as the military retainers of the territorial Princes, 
tie terror of the common people. But in modern Japan the 
Samurai have become the ruling class, and the whole truth 
could not be told about them by their journalistic representa¬ 
tive, Capt. Brinkley. There were two classes of them, a very 
small percentage of “high rank” Samurai, who owned prop¬ 
erty, were employed by their lords in positions of trust, and 


28 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


formed the best class of Japan’s nobility. The “low class” 
Samurai, were eking out a miserable existence on a daily 
ration of rice, and a yearly salary of 8 to 16 Yen ($4.00 to 
$8.00), for which they had to fight and lay down their life at 
Tie beckoning of their Lords at any time, in war or peace. 
But having, 600 years ago, been given the rank of nobility, 
although only the lowest grade of it, the low-class Samurai 
received a high compulsory education which was, however, 
not accompanied by proper moral training and only helped 
f:o make them the most dangerous political element of their 
people. 

From 1853 to ’68 they were the fanatical enemies of 
the white people, murdering them, burning their houses, and 
(ommitting continuously acts of violence against them corn 
trary to the treaties made by the government with the for¬ 
eign nations. In ’68, forty-two low-class Samurai committed 
lngh treason by taking by force, in time of peace, possession 
of the palace grounds and the Imperial Court together with 
the boy-Mikado. They drove the lawful Regent and guard¬ 
ian of the young Sovereign from his offices in the Court, and 
oiganized a new government which they enveloped, by means 
of the unscrupulous use of the “Philosophy of Falsehood,” 
with so dense a veil of political fraud, as to deceive their own 
people, all the foreign nations, and, worst of all, their Mon¬ 
arch, and his successor, till this day. 

They called this treasonable act “the Restoration of the 
Monarchial Power to the Imperial House”, but, in fact, they 
established an Oligarchy of Samurai. They called the boy 
Mikado the ruling -Emperor, but made him the head of the 
new Shinto state religion and surrounded him, although 
affected with brain disease and nervous disorders, with a num¬ 
ber of voluptuous concubines. They let him take, publicly, 
an oath that he would abolish the ancient superstitions and 
create a popular government, but the promise was never ful- 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


29 


filled. In 1869, after having, through the support of thou¬ 
sands of Samurai of their own clans, defeated the defenders 
of the lawful government, they united all the hostile clans 
by adopting a secret anti-foreign and war policy. They 
feigned friendship for the foreigners, and obtained their 
assistance in becoming a strong military power for the pur¬ 
pose of betraying the foreign nations, making war upon 
them and conquering their territory. To strengthen them¬ 
selves in the supreme power, the ruling usurpers created a 
new army and navy, as whose officers the low-class Samurai 
were employed, while other members of the same class were 
put in charge of the administrative departments. 

In ’90 the Samurai Oligarchs gave the country a consti¬ 
tution and created a parliament for the avowed purpose of 
giving the people modern liberal laws and a popular govern¬ 
ment. But the constitution as made known in every foreign 
country by Japanese ambassadors, and printed in every 
Encyclopedia, is a fraud; many of its most important articles 
being superseded by an “interpretation of the constitution,” 
which is the real law of the. country. By a trick worthy of 
the “Philosophy of Falsehood”, the religious liberty granted 
in one article is abolished by another one, which makes the 
Shinto Cult the state religion that is taught in every school 
of the country, and causes every Japanese child to become a 
fanatical believer in its political superstitions. Finally, the 
constitution does not create a parliamentary “popular” gov¬ 
ernment, because it was not framed for that purpose. Its 
“interpretation” gives the ruling Oligarchy the powers of a 
military despotism, in order to make Japan the strongest 
military and naval country on the Pacific Ocean, and to let 
her people and race “accomplish the great achievements” 
which nobody (mt of “Japanese blood can foretell”, as was 
predicted, in 1904, by the highest statesmen, military and 


30 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

naval officers and government officials in one of their publi¬ 
cations mentioned hereinbefore. 

Through the “Philosophy of Falsehood” the government 
of modern Japan has misled the entire outside world, and its 
own people, except the high priests of the Shinto Cult and 
the nobility, ever since 1868, about its further policies. Bui 
it seems to be ready now to strike the initiatory blow for 
the introduction of its secret world policy, the ideals of the 
low-class Samurai who are now the ruling Oligarchs. Capt. 
Brinkley, speaking for the Japanese, said about their future 
in his book, “Japan,” in 1904: 

“All that can be said of Japan presently is that she 
has boundless ambitions; that she has established her 
ability to reach great ends with small means, and that 
she will certainly bid for a far higher place than she has 
yet attained.” 

But other writers who represent the old Samurai class, 
speak plainer. Saburo Shimada, a member of parliament, of 
Samurai birth and close to the government, expressed, in 
1905, the secret wish of every former Samurai, that their 
race may control in the future, as it has done in the past, the 
destinies of mankind, when he wrote: 

“Taking the present state of humanity in considera¬ 
tion, the Europeans make assertion that they are the 
race which governs and controls the destiny of mankind. 
While there is some truth in this statement, men’s intel¬ 
lectual and moral progress does not depend upon the dif¬ 
ference in race. Those who lay stress upon the differ¬ 
ence in race, look at the present situation only, and 
ignore the past and the future.” 

The past which this Japanese statesman refers to is the 
time from the beginning of the 13th to the end of the 14th 
century, when the Mongol-Tartars, first under Genghis Khan, 
and later under Tamerlane, held sway over more than 
half of the then known world, which they had conquered. 
There is other Japanese evidence which leaves no doubt 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 31 

that in America the battle for the world’s supremacy is to be 
fought out. And for that purpose Japan’s Oligarchs want to 
get a foothold on the North American Continent, where they 
know that they can presently grasp a rich territory several 
times as large as Japan, without perhaps firing a shot, only 
for the trouble of taking it, as they have done in Korea. 

This is not a chimerical idea, but strictly true, as are the 
other statements made in this Introductory, as shall be proven 
in the following chapters, zvhich will expose the condition 
and position of the Emperors of Modern Japan, the form of 
the government, and the existence of an anti-foreign and war 
policy adopted in 1869 . To guard against error and the 
charge of prejudice, the information given herein has been 
gathered from authenticated facts of the history of Old and 
New Japan, from the writings of Japanese authors who are, 
either publicly or privately, connected with the Ruling Pow¬ 
ers, and from only such foreign authors as have acknoivl- 
edged their admiration of the present government. The in¬ 
formation thus obtained will lay bare the most stupendous 
political fraud known to modern history, which, although 
originated and kept up by a comparatively small class of the 
Japanese, has successfully deceived not only the great masses 
of their ozvn people, but also all the civilized nations of the 
world. 










* 























. 
















The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

CHAPTER I. 

THE SECRET RULERS OF JAPAN. 

1. JAPAN HAS HER OWN CIVILIZATION 

To understand the form of government and the policies 
of modern Japan, it is necessary to know the history of Old 
Japan, the civilization, and the character of the different 
classes of the Japanese people. It has previously been 
stated that there is a generally prevailing belief in the United 
States that the Japanese have become civilized according to 
Western ethics. A couple of quotations from the writing;, 
of two highly educated Englishmen who have lived for 
years in Japan, and feel very friendly to her people, will 
show the error of that belief. Mr. Alfred Stead, the before 
mentioned author, wrote in 1906: 

“The Japanese never wished, nor do they wish now, 
to replace their own civilization by Western ideas.” 

And the late Bishop Bickerstalh, of Tokyo, wrote, in 
1895, to “the British Society for the Propagation of the 
Gospel”, what every student of Japanese life will endorse: 

“The Japanese have a civilization of their own. It 
is, in its own way, as real as our own. It has its own 
canons of thought and taste and feelings, its own man¬ 
ners and customs, its own ideals and hopes. It will not 
be a Western nation, nor an Eastern nation; it is Japan, 
the same people with some little changed methods, today, 
as in the past.” 

2. SHINTOISM THE STATE RELIGION 

But their civilization is not easily understood, because 
it not merely differs somewhat from that of the Western 
nations, but is almost the reverse of it. This is caused by 
the peculiar fact that the principal Japanese religion which 


34 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

shapes their whole private and political life contains no mor¬ 
al tenets, and the moral teaching the people have got during 
the last 1400 years comes from atheistic sources. Shintoism 
is the religion which, if the mythical history of the country 
is to be believed, was brought there by the conquerors who, 
in the seventh century B. C., subdued the native popula¬ 
tion. And it has remained the main religion till the present 
time. That a religion thus taught since 2500 years must 
have influenced the character of the people strongly is self- 
evident. It has concentrated all their better feelings upon 
the loyalty to their Monarch, which includes love of the 
country, and upon the ancestor worship which embraces 
intense filial piety; but it left the people, otherwise, without 
any religious moral standard. Innumerable quotations from 
the writings of the most prominent Japanese publicists con¬ 
firm this statement. Thus says Ishio Tokutomi, a leading 
author and journalist: 

“Our country is our idol, and patriotism our first 
doctrine. From the Emperor downward, the vast ma¬ 
jority has no other religion.” 

Professor Kazutami Ukita, D. C. L., writes: 

“What are the leading elements in the national 
spirit? They are loyalty, patriotism and progressive¬ 
ness.” 

Baron Suyematsu, the well known statesman and writer, 
tells how all other teachings, such as the philosophies of 
Confucius and the doctrines of Buddhism, were gradually 
ingrafted with Shintoism. He writes: 

“Shintoism is, essentially, a creed founded upon rev¬ 
erence of ancestors, conjointly with the love of the 
‘fatherland’, and likewise of the ‘exalted personage’— 
the Mikado—who mirrors the best traditions of our 
common ancestors, and exercises the wisest control over 
our land. Hence loyalty and patriotism are the most 
important features of the creed, as regards its outward 
manifestations. All foreign creeds, be they Confucian- 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


35 


ism or Buddhism, when once transplanted to the soil of 
Japan, become gradually imbued with the spirit which 
animates Shintoism. Thus Confucianism in Japan is not 
the Confucianism of China. The great Chinese teaching, 
with all its wealth of fine maxims and sayings, is made 
full use of, but it is Japanified. In Japan it has been 
revivified, as it were, and breathes a new atmosphere, 
wherein it is strengthened and purified, until it is nation¬ 
alized and becomes identified with all our notions of loy¬ 
alty and patriotism to a degree that it seems almost to 
assume concrete form. The case is the same with regard 
to Buddhism.” 

3. NO RELIGIOUS MORAL TEACHING IN JAPAN 

It is claimed by the Japanese that they have received 
their moral teachings from the philosophy of Confucius, the 
great Chinese savant, and from the doctrines of Buddhism, 
b oth of which are atheistic. As such a mode of educating a 
people has never been tried by any civilized or half civi¬ 
lized nation before, it is necessary to investigate what effect 
it has had upon the Japanese. And this is especially needed, 
because Japan has, during the last 45 years, become one of 
the great world powers possessing great opportunities for 
doing good or evil. And yet, the character of her people, 
and their whole civilization, is still only partly known to the 
outside world. Besides that, with most of the white race 
people the belief prevails that morality cannot be taught suc¬ 
cessfully without being based upon religion. Many of the 
wisest men of all ages have been of that opinion, of whom 
only one may be quoted, the acknowledged father of one of 
the greatest nations on earth, the immortal George Wash¬ 
ington. In his great “Farewell Address” to the people of 
the United States, he said: 

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to 
political prosperity, religion and morality are indispen¬ 
sable supports. In vain would that man claim the trib- 


36 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


ute of patriotism who would labor to subvert these great 
pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the 
duties of men and citizens. A volume would not trace 
all their connections with private and public felicity. Let 
it simply be asked, where is the security for property, for 
reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation 
desert the oaths which are the instruments of the investi¬ 
gations in courts of justice? And let us with caution 
indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained 
without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the, 
influence of refined education on minds of peculiar struc¬ 
ture, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that 
national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious 
principle 

4. CHARACTER OF ANCIENT JAPAN’S LOWER 
CLASSES 

During the first 1,000 years of Japan’s national exist¬ 
ence the people had no other teaching than the Shinto Cult, 
no schools, and no moral teaching of any kind. At the end 
of that time the immigrating Chinese found, in the fourth 
century A. D., the natives to be fanatically loyal to their 
“divine” Mikados and their country, and devoted to the 
ancestor worship, which they showed by the observance of 
its daily rites, and an high degree of filial piety—the result 
of the teaching of Shintoism during the previous 1,000 years. 
Besides, the people were very superstitious, made so through 
the destructive natural forces of their country, such as earth¬ 
quakes, tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, electrical storms, 
and others, whose causes the ignorant natives did not know, 
and therefore ascribed to a multitude of spirits; a supersti¬ 
tion that was fostered by the Shinto belief in numerous Gods. 
But the people were also impressed by the idyllic beauty of 
their island homes, and found pleasure in harmless out-door 
enjoyments, which contributed to render them light-hearted 
and gentle, fond of singing and dancing on occasional holi- 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


37 


days when resting - from their hard toil by which they earned 
their living. For the hand of their Mongolian-Tartar con¬ 
querors was lying heavily on the subdued natives, and forced 
them to be frugal and industrious. They were, however, not 
embittered against their Rulers and the nobility, but revered, 
under the Shinto Cult, the former and obeyed the latter. 
The moral life of the common people was, probably, pat¬ 
terned after that of the courtiers and nobles, who all in¬ 
dulged in open and unrestrained licentiousness. 

5. NEGATIVE EFFECT OF MORAL TEACHINGS OF 
CONFUCIUS 

The Chinese and Koreans who, in the last part of the 
fourth century A. D., commenced to flock to Japan, initiated 
a new civilization there. They gradually introduced the social 
customs, deferential ceremonial, and polite manners of their 
countries, and also the Chinese classics, which were com¬ 
pilations of the best of the literary works of China, selected 
by Confucius, who had carefully left out anything that did 
not conform with his own views and teachings. They were 
^ of the nature of an u tilitary philosophy, void of any ideal¬ 
ism or metaphysical speculation. Indeed, he warned his 
readers “to respect the Gods but to have nothing to do with 
them.” His chief purpose was to “educate” the human 
heart. “To think, will, and know are the three steps of 
that education which begins with awakening and ends with 
science,” as a Chinese savant explains it. The principle upon 
which Confucius' system of moral education rests, is to 
maintain the reason within fixed limits, and not let the five 
senses mislead it. Man is, according to him, so much super¬ 
ior to woman that the latter must obey her father, brother, 
husband and son. 

There are passages in his teachings which urge the 
necessity of the Ruling Powers being morally and mentally 



38 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


able to govern their countries in the interest of their people, 
a demand which the Japanese nobility, who considered them¬ 
selves as the representatives of the population, have ever 
since made use of in their own favor and against the lawful 
Monarchs. History shows that the teachings of Confucius 
were, at once, favorably received by the aristocratic class, 
and made, as soon as any schools were instituted, the sole 
basis of all moral teaching for their children. In the twelfth 
century a new branch of the aristocracy was created, by 
making the military retainers of the Territorial Princes the 
class of two-sworded nobles. They were called Samurai or 
Bushi, and obtained a good education in their Samurai 
schools in which the doctrines of Confucius were taught as 
their only moral tenets. As the leading men of this class 
of nobles have played, not only in ancient but, especially in 
new Japan, a leading political role, it is necessary to ascer¬ 
tain what kind of a character the Samurai had developed, 
during the 700 years of the existence of their class, and by 
means of the teachings of the Chinese classics. There were, 
at the end of the sixties of the last century, educated white 
race people in Japan who had to deal with this class of men, 
and therefore had a good opportunity to learn to know their 
character and habits of life before they had, through the 
intercourse with the white nations, adopted a modern West¬ 
ern gloss. An European pedagogue who had been employed 
by the new Japanese government formed, in 1868, for the 
purpose of introducing Western educational methods in the 
Samurai schools, and had, for his own information, for 
some time acted as teacher in one of them, published, in 
1873, in the English newspaper appearing in Japan under 
subsidy of the Japanese government, a character sketch of 
the members of the Samurai class, or, as he called it, a 
description of “the effect of the old system of education 
upon the mind and temper of the Samurai.” Its publication 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


39 


in a semi-official newspaper without any adverse comment 
guarantees its truthfulness. The writer said: 

“That education gave the youth the merest scraps of 
information about the countries outside of Japan and 
China. It gave him a wonderful dexterity in the man¬ 
ipulations of the pen, a minute knowledge of two Asiatic 
countries, it trained the memory, and stored the mind 
with a few facts and many precepts. It gave him a 
strong, healthy, and muscular body. It made him an 
athlete and a warrior, inured him to pain (for he had 
to go through many violent exercises in very cold 
weather), and taught him to despise death. His long 
training in the atheistic morals of Confucius and Men¬ 
cius (the latter a follower of the former), gave him a 
reverence for antiquity and literary authority, and made 
him skeptical to any form of supernatural religion. It 
made him loyal rather than patriotic; his clan and his 
Lord were his idols, rather than his country and people. 
It perfected him in feats of moral strategy, and made 
him crafty and sinuous. It was the education perfectly 
fitted to conserve the unique state of society in Japan, 
in which a class of governing military-literati, secularly 
educated, lived among an inferior mass of people relig¬ 
iously educated. In such a state of society, and under 
such an education, the Samurai of the noblest type was 
courteous, temperate, forbearing, faithful to promise, 
filial, loyal, skeptical, ready to face an enemy or death, 
proud of his clan and Lord first, and of his country 
next, kind to inferiors, loftily scornful of trade, useful 
labor or knowledge, a soldier, a scholar and a gentleman. 

“A Samurai of the lower type was, at times, craftily 
courteous and insolently rude; loved lying so much as to 
reduce it to a fine art; delighted to attack an enemy— 
in the rear; delighted in abject servility to superiors and 
swaggering brutality to inferiors; was pedantic in learn¬ 
ing, boastful in speech, intemperate and sensuous in liv¬ 
ing, with even a more loftily towering contempt for 
honest industry and useful labor, and looked upon the 
man who ate his own bread and earned his own living 
as the vilest of vermin.” 


40 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

Although this description flatters the high class Samurai 
somewhat, which was probably caused by the surprising dif¬ 
ference between them and the members of the lower class, 
it gives about the latter the truth as nearly as it can be 
expressed in a few sentences. Another authority on this 
subject is the Hon. Francis Ottiwell Adams, from 1867 to 
72 first Charge d’Affairs, and later on Acting Envoy of the 
British Legation in Japan. He had considerable personal 
experience with the low-class Samurai, against whose mur¬ 
derous crimes, committed mostly on white foreigners, the 
different Legations had constantly to complain to the Japan¬ 
ese government. In his excellent book, “History of Japan”, 
Mr. Adams not only quoted the above statement of the 
English pedagogue, but added the following opinion of his 
own about the character of the low-class Samurai. In doing 
so, he ignored the high class, because its members were very 
few, and had nothing to do with the political affairs of the 
country after Commodore Perry’s landing. Mr. Adams 
wrote: 

“The great bulk of the Samurai, the two-sworded 
military retainers, were supported by their Lords, many 
receiving little more than their daily portion of rice. It 
can be well imagined what a bane to the nation these 
swashbucklers, as they have been called, inevitably be¬ 
came (during the peace-era from 1600 to 1868). They 
were reckless, idle fellows, acknowledging no obeisance 
but to their Lords, for whom they were ready to lay 
down their lives, either on the field of battle, in defend¬ 
ing him from assassination, or (whether at his order, or 
of their own free will) by suicide, to save themselves 
and their families from what, according to the strict 
code of Japan, was deemed dishonor. And if they did 
not die thus, they would, very probably, lose their lives 
in some tavern brawl, or be the victims of a vendetta 
which they had brought on themselves by some dreadful 
deed of blood. The classes below them they treated with 
the utmost contempt and brutality, and it requires no 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


41 


proof to show what permanent harm was done to the 
country by this unproductive class, and how poor Japan 
remained in consequence. Out of the whole number 
there were not, according to a native writer, more than 
20 or 30 per cent, who were even effective soldiers, the 
remaining 70 or 80 per cent., as he says, merely turn up 
their eyes gratefully and eat.” 

Of late years the effort has been made by Japanese 
writers and speakers of the Samurai class, to create the be¬ 
lief that, since about 800 years, the tenets of “Bushido,” or, 
as literally translated, the “Way of the Warrior,” have 
formed a national code of ethics which has guided not only 
the Samurai but the whole people, and established a high 
Japanese civilization. It will be proved in the next chapter 
that Bushido has done nothing of the kind, and that its 
praise by native writers is part of the gigantic scheme of 
deception by which Japan’s political secrets are veiled, lest 
they become known to the outside world which is not aware 
that leaders of the low-class Samurai above described, have, 
since 1868, completely controlled the Japanese government. 

The character of the Samurai, as truthfully depicted by 
the two authorities named, shows very lucidly, how correctly 
Washington had, in his “Farewell Address,” pointed out to 
the American people the necessity of religious teaching to 
the great masses, without which only a few exceptional indi¬ 
viduals would become virtuous and upright men and women. 
During 700 years the atheistic moral doctrines of Confucius 
had been taught, daily, in the schools of the Samurai, and 
produced an insignificantly small class of honorable families, 
while the great multitude of these military nobles became the 
victims of the lowest passions and vices of mankind without 
having acquired any virtue but filial piety which was taught 
them by the Shinto religion. When Japan was, in 1854, 
opened to the white race nations, the low-class Samurai 
were, according to the official records of the foreign Lega- 


42 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


tions, a class of well educated but criminally inclined soldiers 
for whose atrocious deeds of violence perpetrated on for¬ 
eigners, the Japanese government had, during the next 20 
years, to pay millions of dollars, as will be related later. 


6. EFFECT OF BUDDHISM ON JAPANESE 

When Buddhism was introduced in Japan nearly 200 
years later than Confucianism, it easily reached the low class 
^' people, because it was preached by Buddha priests and monks, 
while the Chinese classics had to be read in the Chinese lan¬ 
guage, a written Japanese language not existing until the 
eighth century. The Buddhistic teaching that the wealthy 
should practice benevolence found favor with the poor lower 
classes, while the occultism of the new religion fascinated 
the wealthy nobility and the Court. But the fanatical Shinto- 
ists, and especially their priests, did not look with favor 
upon the new religion which ignored the Shinto deities, and 
threatened to destroy the popular belief in the “divine” 
Rulers of the country. And as it happened that twice, short¬ 
ly after the introduction of Buddhism, national disasters, such 
as famine and pestilence, visited Japan, the Shinto priests 
pointed to the suffering of the people as being the punish¬ 
ment for favoring the new belief. Riots took place, Budd¬ 
hist functionaries had to suffer ill-treatment, and the Court 
and nobility were, therefore, slow to adopt the new faith, 
while it found multitudes of followers among the common 
classes. 

But many of the educated Japanese perceived the neces¬ 
sity of giving the people a moral code which the Shinto Cult 
did not contain, and when, in the end of the 6th century an 
Imperial Prince, a man of progressive ideas, of virtue, and 
intelligence, embraced the Buddhist belief, it soon became the 
favorite doctrine of the Court and the whole country. The 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


43 


fact that the most civilized nations of Asia had, at that time 
adopted Buddhism, influenced the Japanese also to do so, 
because they were then, as much as now, possessed of the 
ambition to belong to the most prominent nations of the 
world. Unfortunately, Buddhism, notwithstanding the beau¬ 
tiful precepts which it commended its followers to live up to, 
was, like Confucianism, atheistic. Its first and principal de¬ 
mand was that every Buddhist should be benevolent. Besides 
that five “universal obligations” were to be observed by every 
member, namely, not to kill, steal, lie, commit adultery, or get 
drunk. For those who were leading the so-called “religious 
life” a number of “perfections” were prescribed which they 
had to attain in order finally to reach the “Nirvana.” The 
meaning of this word has repeatedly been changed. In Japan 
it was taught to indicate the blissful state of final repose 
from the turmoil, strife, ignorance, and misery of life. There 
were three grades of this Nirvana, the first and second of 
which were pantheons in which the deified saints dwelled 
before entering the third and final grade. There were also 
hells provided for, in which the wicked had to stay a certain 
time; but whatever punishment was, in these hells or other¬ 
wise, inflicted upon the believers, it did not come as soon as 
a person had died, but often after many other existences, in 
millions of years. 

For Buddhism, although denying that a human being has 
a soul, taught that it did, after departing from life, 
assume another shape and existence, in accordance with the 
concatenation of cause and effect, with which the Buddhist 
divinities had nothing to do. They are not believed to be 
pleased or displeased with any human action, nor to have the 
power to assign any future shape, condition or punishment 
to anybody. The idea of a God having created and ruling 
the world does not exist in the Buddhist doctrines. They 
do not deny that there is such a Supreme Being, they simply 


44 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


know nothing about it, and therefore ignore it. The conse¬ 
quence of this peculiar teaching has been that every people 
which adopted Buddhism as their religion became atheistic, 
and, without any exception, degenerated morally and men¬ 
tally, and consequently also politically, in proof of the oft 
disputed but yet true canon, that an atheistic nation can exist 
and thrive for a short time, but has no political future. And 
the ruin of these people has always been initiated by the ex¬ 
ample of viciousness set by Buddhist priests, monks and other 
functionaries. That Japan forms no exception to this rule, 
her history plainly teaches. 


7. FIVE ANCIENT FEMALE JAPANESE RULERS 
FAVORED BUDDHISM 

Prince Mumayado, better known by his posthumous 
name of Shotoku Daishi, was supported in his work on be¬ 
half of Buddhism by his aunt, Suiko, who occupied the 
throne from 593 to 628, and employed Shotoku during 29 
years as her prime-minister. Under her reign and that of 
her successors, during the next 200 years, among which there 
were four more women, the Buddhist priests were not only 
able to get thousands of temples and monasteries built by the 
government, but obtained so much political power that, dur¬ 
ing Shomu’s reign (724 to 749), a monk, by the name of 
Dokio, became lover of the Mikado’s wife, Komiyo, and con¬ 
spired, with her help, to ascend the throne, but failed. The 
Mikado, however, was prevailed upon to enter a monastery, 
and his daughter succeeded him. It was under Shomu’s 
weak reign that, through the waste of public money by the 
court and nobles in building temples of Buddha, the poor 
people were driven into starvation; and this condition was 
made use of by the Shinto priests to agitate again against 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


45 


Buddhism. The people became aroused about the neglect 
of the Shinto Gods and threatened to rebel against the Budd¬ 
hist teachings. 


8. BUDDHISM JAPANIFIED 

In that emergency Buddhism preserved its further exist¬ 
ence in Japan by the ingenuity of one of the leading priests, 
Giyogi, who declared that the Sun-Goddess, the chief of the 
Shinto deities, was a re-incarnation of Buddha, and so were 
all the Mikados and other Shinto Gods. Thus Buddhism was 
Japanified; it became in fact subordinate to the Shinto Cult, 
and was, henceforth, permitted to spread throughout the 
country. For teaching the divinity of the Mikado the priests 
and monks were allowed, otherwise, to do as they pleased. 
Notwithstanding their religious obligation to remain humble, 
honest, chaste, and peaceable, they soon initiated all the 
vices of the Japanese Court and nobles, especially the sexual 
immorality practiced by them. Polygamy had been a com¬ 
mon custom since times immemorial. The Shinto Cult, which 
taught no morals, did not object to it. The introduction of 
Confucianism, with its teaching that woman must obey her 
male relatives throughout her life, assisted the men in satis¬ 
fying their carnal desires. Buddhism recommended to its 
followers purity of body and soul, but had no punishment 
for the impure. 


9. SEXUAL IMMORALITY NOT CHECKED BY 
BUDDHISM 

Gradually the sexual vice, not curbed as it was, led to 
unnatural habits that were worse than beastly. The military 
considered them as manly virtues, and the Buddha monks 
permitted the foul practices in their monasteries. Intermar- 


46 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


riages between children of the same father, and other near 
blood relatives were legitimate and of common occurrence. It 
was the general belief with men of all classes, that women 
had no rights over their own bodies, but were to be bar- 
^ tered, like cattel, to satisfy the lust of the men who wanted 
them as wives or concubines. The history of Japan is full 
of such incidents in which the male actors were not low-bred 
soldiers, but the leading statesmen and nobles of their time. 

It is a matter of course that women could not fail to be 
affected by such a life, and, from the Imperial and noble 
ladies at the Court down to the lowest plebian female, they 
became degraded to such a degree that, in course of the cen¬ 
turies, they, like the men, lost the sense of shame, that most 
beautiful endowment of virtuous woman. Hence it is a cus¬ 
tom till the present day, that men and women together ex¬ 
pose, without hesitancy, their naked bodies in public baths. 
It may here be mentioned, though, that, in modern Japan, 
earnest efforts are made by educated women to better the 
moral status of their sisters of all the different classes. 

This subject of sexual morality has brought forth many 
diverging opinions of foreign writers about the Japanese 
civilization. But there is none of them as competent to dis¬ 
cuss that scheme as the author of “Japan, Its History, Art 
and Literature,” Capt. F. Brinckley, who has been mentioned 
in the “Introductory.” He wrote, in 1902, in his description 
of the character of the Samurai: 

“No feature of the Bushi’s (Samurai) character is 
more discreditable than his slavish yielding to the erotic 
passions. In the camp where the presence of woman 
was generally impossible, he thought no shame of resort¬ 
ing to unnatural liaisons; and out of that indulgence 
there grew a perverted code of morality which sur¬ 
rounded such acts with a halo of martial manliness. 
The names of such great captains as Oda Nobunaga, 
Hideyoshi, the great Taiko, Uyejugo, Keashin, Taheda 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


47 


Shingen, and others, are connected with liaisons of this 
descriptions. But in that respect the conduct of the 
Japanese Samurai is deprived of singularity by numer¬ 
ous counterparts in other countries. What differen¬ 
tiates him is his undisguised indifference to chastity for 
its own sake, as well as the obligation imposed by the 
marriage tie. It is remarkable that Buddhism which, in 
all its forms, with one exception, insisted upon the ob¬ 
servance of celibacy by its ministers, failed completely, 
in the case of its disciples, to subject the passions of the 
flesh to any of the restraints that Christianity enforced 
so successfully in Imperial Rome. In vain the student 
looks among the heroes of the Military Epoch for a man 
who made purity an ideal, continence a duty, or con¬ 
jugal fidelity a law.” 

After quoting a number of cases in which men holding 
high positions had become enamored with women of high 
and low rank, some virtuous and some the reverse, and often 
forsook honor and duty, for sake of their immoral infatua¬ 
tions, the author clothed the subject with the following state¬ 
ment in which he does justice to the Japanese women. 

“These examples constitute only a fraction of the 
recorded catalogue; but, on the other hand, there is 
nowhere to be seen a figure ennobled by purity of life; 
nowhere a man whose love of one woman, and one only, 
stands prominent among the motives of his great deeds. 
Such men there may have been, but they are not found 
among the makers of the nation’s history. To women 
alone was left the honor of practicing conjugal fidelity 
and virtuous self-restraint; and the ideal of objective 
virtue she attained contrasts vividly with the abyss of 
self-indulgence into which the other sex fell.” 


10. BUDDHA PRIESTS IN POLITICS OF OLD JAPAN 

But there were other vices, besides sexual immorality, 
which the Buddha priests adopted from the Japanese nobil¬ 
ity, and thereby grossly violated their sacred obligations not 


48 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


to kill, nor to steal. Their monasteries were filled with thou¬ 
sands of monks who had to be supported. Jealousies be¬ 
tween leading functionaries of different institutions of that 
kind often occurred, and led to regular warfare between 
them, in which professional soldiers were employed on both 
sides. The exhortations to charitableness, which was con¬ 
stantly in the mouths of the Buddhist priests, served as a 
means to enrich them by obtaining from their pious follow¬ 
ers valuable gifts. Gradually they became such a power in 
the country that they engaged large armed forces, took part 
in the civil wars, and finally grew, through their rapacious¬ 
ness, a public danger. The end of this condition which had 
lasted for many years came in the 16th century when Oda 
Nobunaga, a great military leader, made war upon the 
Buddha priests, killed thousands of them, burnt hundreds of 
their temples and monasteries, and broke the political power 
of Buddhism in Japan forever. 

11. CHARACTER OF COMMON PEOPLE 

No proof is needed for the assertion that a religion 
whose representatives led such lives, could not educate the 
people to become virtuous and moral. The ignorant always 
adopt the vices of their superiors, and will not respect the 
teachings of men who violate the obligations they put upon 
others. The consequence has been that the example set by 
the Court, the nobility, the Buddha functionaries, and since 
the 12th century, also by the Samurai, has molded the char¬ 
acter of the common people, and made them what they are 
today. Seeing the constant fighting their feudal Lords in¬ 
dulged in since the ninth century, and even before that time, 
to satisfy their ambition and greed for power and wealth, 
the people became infected with the desire for fighting and 
stealing, just as their Buddha teachers had acquired the 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


49 


habit. Being treated cruelly by the military classes, the peo¬ 
ple adopted the same vice and made cruelty a national cus¬ 
tom that has only, in the last 20 years, commenced to give 
away to more human feelings to their fellow-men. Know¬ 
ing that the Buddha priests who preached veracity were, 
openly and without shame, living a lie, the people imitated 
their example, and became mendacious. Revengefulness, 
which was taught by Confucius as a virtue and considered 
such by the Samurai, and, until a few centuries ago, permit¬ 
ted by the law, is today a leading national characteristic 
which plays a very important role in Japan’s foreign politics. 


12. SHINTO RELIGION TAUGHT JAPANESE THEIR 
ONLY GREAT VIRTUES 

While all those vices have infected the Japanese people 
notwithstanding the constant teaching, during nearly 1500 
years, of the philosophical maxims of the Chinese classics 
collected by Confucius and Mencius, and the beautiful doc¬ 
trines of Buddhism, both of which are atheistic, the Shinto 
Cult, a religion full of errors and superstitions, but based upon 
the belief in the existence of divinities that reward and pun¬ 
ish mankind according to their good and bad deeds, has given 
Japan’s people their only great virtues, although its want of 
moral teaching could not prevent the spread of the Japanese 
vices. Shintoism has planted filial piety into every Japanese 
heart p since untold centuries. And as a natural sequence to 
this cardial virtue, respect for their government, obedience 
to their Monarch and his representatives, and love of theii 
country, their “God-given” homes, have become their poli¬ 
tical virtues to a degree unknown in any other people. The 
teaching of Shintoism that every Japanese must, at any time 
when desired, give up everything he or she possesses, includ¬ 
ing their life, for their Emperor, has developed in Japan a 


50 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

patriotism which, being 2000 years old, has become the peo¬ 
ple’s second nature and deserves the admiration of the most 
civilized nations. With justifiable pride the Japanese histo¬ 
rians point to the fact that, since the existence of the Empire, 
no revolution against the Ruling Dynasty has ever been un¬ 
dertaken by the people. 

It is evident that the Japanese are very susceptible to 
religious belief, and, consequently, it is highly probable that, 
if the Shinto Cult had been cleansed of its gross supersti¬ 
tions, and taught the moral teachings of Buddhism as divine 
commandments, the Japanese civilization would rank, pres¬ 
ently, with that of the most advanced modern nations. But 
Shintoism has not escaped the fate of all other religions, of 
being abused for political purposes, only with this difference, 
that while in other countries this abuse has been sporadic, 
and is in modern times of rare occurrence, it has in Japan 
been continuous since the seventh century A. D., and is em¬ 
ployed more thoroughly and systematically today than ever 
before. There has been no change in the rites and doctrines 
of the Cult since more than 1000 years. The following de¬ 
scription is, preferable, copied from the writings of Mr. 
Alfred Stead, the before-mentioned favorite author of the 
Japanese government, who has received it from the high 
priests. 


13. RITES OF SHINTO CULT 

“In every Japanese house there are two sacred places, 
one of which is common to all, the ‘Kamidana’ or 
God-shelf. It is the Shinto altar, consisting of a plain 
wooden shelf. In the center of it is placed an O-nusa 
(great offering), which is a part of the offerings made 
to ‘Daijingu’ of Ise, or the temple dedicated to Amate- 
rusa Omi-Kami, the ‘First Imperial Ancestor.’ The 
O-nusa or Taima is distributed from the temple of Ise 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


51 


to every house in the Empire at the end of each year, 
and is worshipped by every loyal Japanese as the repre¬ 
sentative of the ‘First Imperial Ancestor.’ On this altar 
shelf the offering of rice, sake (liquor brewed from 
rice), and branches of the sakaki tree, are usually placed; 
and every morning the members of the household make 
reverential obeisance before it by clapping hands and 
bowing, while in the evening lights are placed on the 
shelf. On this shelf is placed in addition the charm of 
Ujigama, or the local tutelary God of the family, and 
in many houses the charms of the other Shinto deities 
also. In every Shinto household there is a second Kami- 
dana shelf which is dedicated exclusively to the worship 
of the ancestors of the house. The same offerings as 
on the first shelf are made on the second one. In both, 
the Shinto and Buddhist households, the Imperial an¬ 
cestors are worshipped alike, while there is a difference 
in the worship of the private ancestors. 

“Besides the definitely stated occasions for the wor¬ 
ship of ancestors in every household in Japan, there are 
sacrifice days, months and years, on which on the day 
of the month of certain years, corresponding with the 
date of the death of the ancestor, celebrations are to be 
held. With the Japanese each day contains some min¬ 
utes set apart for active veneration of the Imperial 
Ancestors. The Emperor is the living representation of 
the ‘First Imperial Ancestor,’ and contains in himself all 
the virtues and all the powers of his ancestors. It is 
difficult to imagine people more loyal, if loyalty consists 
in the outward forms of loyal actions; for the people 
of Japan do reverence every day to the Emperor, as the 
representative of the ‘First Imperial Ancestor! This 
has been going on since 2500 years (including 1200 years 
of mythical times). There has been no break, no change 
of direction. Thus the veneration reaches the present day 
with accumulative force, impossible almost of compre¬ 
hension, and creates in the Japanese people a patriotic 
and loyal force of inconceivable magnitude. 

“For the Emperor's devotion to his Imperial Ances¬ 
tors there are three temples in the Imperial palace sane- 


52 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


tuary. The central one, Kashiko Dokoro, contains the 
‘sacred mirror’ and is dedicated to the worship of the 
‘First Imperial Ancestor.’ The second one, Kworei Den, 
standing to the West, is dedicated to the worship of ‘all 
the Imperial Ancestors since Jimmu Tenno, the first 
Emperor, the founder of the empire.’ The third temple, 
to the East, is known as Shinden, and serves for the 
worship of all other deities.” 

About the ritual at solemn festivities in private houses 
Prof. Nobushige Hozumi, a leading author on the subject 
of “Ancestor Worship,” writes: 

“Shinto offerings consist of sake, rice, fish, game, 
vegetable, and fruits for food and drink, and pieces of 
silk and hemp for clothing, while branches of the sasaki 
tree and flowers are also offered. The priests who con¬ 
duct the ceremony clap their hands before the altar, and 
the chief priest pronounces the prayer, the words of 
which vary on different occasions, but usually end with 
the supplication that the spirit may protect and watch 
over the family, and accept the offerings dutifully sub¬ 
mitted. After this, each assembled party, commencing 
with the head of the house, places a small branch of the 
sasaki tree and a piece of paper representing fine cloth 
upon the altar, then clap hands, and make obeisance.” 
Similar ceremonies at a Buddhist house end in recita¬ 
tions from sacred books. In Shinto festivals no books are 
used, because the Shinto Cult has only some historical works 
but none treating on religion. Mr. Stead’s description shows 
that Shintoism has not been changed, since many centuries, 
and has no moral or any other preaching. The priests do not 
exhort the living how to live properly, but they importune 
the spirits of the dead to grant all kinds of favors to the 
supplicants. They also promise those who buy amulets and 
charms from them the protection of some deity against dis¬ 
eases, losses in business, fire, flood, and similar injuries. And 
what the Shinto priest does for the individual, the Emperor 
does for the nation. 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


53 


14. PRIESTLY FUNCTIONS OF EMPERORS OF NEW 
JAPAN 

He prays in the three temples in his palace every day to 
his divine ancestors that they may protect his country, and 
the people whom he, their Ruler, allows to live there, against 
earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, pestilence, defeat in 
war, and every other disaster that might befall the people. 
As a relative and representative of the Gods, he can propiti¬ 
ate them by his entreaties better than any human being could 
do. He thus continually watches over and rules his people 
not by any ability as a statesman, administrator of public 
afifairs, a general, or admiral, but by “his virtue” in praying 
to his ancestors who, as Gods, govern heaven and earth. To 
these devotions he gives his life, unless sickness prevents 
him. That is the principal Shinto doctrine about the duty of 
Japan’s Ruler, who has, for that purpose, been made the Head 
of the Cult by the Constitution of 1868 and the present one 
of 1890. The great masses of the people, and the Emperor 
himself, believe in the efficacy of his prayers in the ruling ot 
the country, while the ruling class, the nobility, feign to do so. 

As this employment of the Emperor is the base on which 
the whole present government has been built for domestic 
purposes, while the outside world is made to believe that the 
Emperor is a modern Monarch, according to the ethics of 
the Western civilization, Japanese writers and their foreign 
friends will deny that the Emperors of modern Japan are 
Mikado according to the ancient Shinto belief; but in vain! 
There are numerous proofs to that effect. For instance, 
when in the “Sea of Japan,” during the Russian war, Ad¬ 
miral Togo defeated the Russian fleet by his superior naval 
strategy, his better armed ships, and the destructive fire of 
his guns, the whole world acknowledged the superiority of 
the Japanese fleet and its admiral, and gave full praise to 
both. But Togo, in his despatch to the Emperor, said: 


54 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


“That we have gained success beyond our expecta¬ 
tions is due to ( the brilliant virtue of your Majesty and 
the protection of the Spirits of your Imperial ancestors, 
and not to the actions of any human being! ” 

To any modern Monarch such a compliment would have 
been an insult to his intelligence, and landed the admiral in 
an asylum for the demented. In Japan it was in full accord 
with the teachings of the state religion, and confirmed both, 
the great masses of the people and the Emperor himself, in 
their belief in Shintoism, and in his power to rule his country 
by his prayers. 


15. FUJIWARA FAMILY USURPS MIKADO’S 
FUNCTIONS 

The process of turning the descendants of Jimmu, the 
conqueror, and founder of the empire, into sacerdotal nulli¬ 
ties after having been warriors for centuries, may be dated 
from the rule of Mikado Tenchi (668-671), who already, 
as Prince Imperial, had come under the influence of Kama- 
tari, the head of the hereditary high priest family, the Naka- 
tomi, and after his ascension to the throne, made the ambi¬ 
tious priest “Daijin” the highest state official, and gave him 
the surname “Fujiwara,” thus founding the family of that 
name which is still the noblest next to the Imperial House. 
Kamatari and many of his successors ruled wisely for the 
different Mikado during a number of years, but confirmed 
their hold on the Imperial power by creating for themselves 
the office of “Kuambaku,” Regent and Representative of the 
Sovereign, which became hereditary in the family. By that 
time a Chinese custom had, through the Buddhist teaching 
that perfect peace and happiness can only be obtained in soli¬ 
tude and meditation away from the anxieties and cares of 
life, been adopted by the Court of the Mikado, according 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


55 


to which they abdicated when yet in the prime of life. This 
custom was favored by the Fujiwara, who did not want men 
of mature age and experience on the throne, but youths and 
children. And to surround them even in their home life with 
the Fujiwara influence, a rule was established that the wives 
of the Mikado should be selected from the Fujiwara family. 

In this manner the Monarchs became the helpless tools 
of the high-priest family. As soon as an Imperial Prince 
was born that was destined to succeed to the throne, the 
Fujiwara Kuambaku took charge of him, gave the boy when 
fifteen years old a Fujiwara princess as wife, and chose his 
concubines for him. When he became Mikado, he had to 
perform his Shinto prayers, and if, by that time, his mind 
had not been completely molded to the wishes of the leading 
Fujiwara officials, but showed signs of independence, and of 
a desire to assert his Imperial prerogatives, he was persuad¬ 
ed, or forced, to abdicate. Being not in touch with the out¬ 
side world, and unacquainted with any of their subjects ex¬ 
cept the Kuambaku, their Regents, and the Dai jin, their chief 
ministers, who controlled all the Court attendants and serv¬ 
ants, the Monarchs were helpless. They passed their time 
in the company of the Shinto priests, and of their wives and 
concubines, as Demigods as they were told, but, in fact, as 
the captives of their own officials. 

On this subject the author of “Story of Old Japan,” 
Prof. Joseph H. Langford, for 33 years British Consul, and 
later, in England, a teacher of the Japanese language and 
history, writes: 

“Every subject, according to the unwritten constitu¬ 
tion of old Japan, had the right of appealing direct to 
the Emperor, and so much was this recognized that a box 
was placed outside the palace gate for the reception of 
petitions. The Fujiwara assumed the right of opening all, 
and of either rejecting them at once, or submitting them 
to the Emperors, as they pleased. None, whether high 


56 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

or low, could approach the Emperor except through 
them. They became a barrier between the Emperor and 
his people over which neither could pass, and the Emper¬ 
ors, bereft of all real power, were reduced to mere fair- 
neants, voluptuaries, or dilettanti, who passed all their 
time among the women of the Court, or in any way, 
except in the vigorous and active discharge of their 
duties as rulers of their Empire. They were lost to their 
people, and though surrounded with all the outward 
marks of honor, they became mere prisoners in their 
palaces, only names to be whispered with the same 
reverence as were those of the Gods of Heaven. The 
Fujiwara in the 7th and 8th centuries were the first 
usurpers of the Imperial prerogatives, and the prece¬ 
dent they founded was continually followed, without any 
real break, until the reign of the Emperor Mutso Hito, 
in 1868 r 


16. SEXUAL DEBAUCHERIES OF THE MIKADO 

The ambition to share in the Imperial power was not 
limited, though, to the Fujiwara family. Most of the other 
nobles had the same desire; and, not able to communicate 
personally with the Mikado without the knowledge of the 
Fujiwara officials, they tried to reach them through their 
daughters, whom they gave to the young Monarchs as concu¬ 
bines. These girls were instructed by their relatives that it 
should be their principal aim to bear the Mikado children, 
lest the Imperial House die out, whose direct line of offspring 
were alone entitled to succeed to the throne. The real pur¬ 
pose of this instruction was of a selfish nature. The chil¬ 
dren born by the concubines would be Princes, and as such, 
even if not called to the throne, could convey political influ¬ 
ence, wealth, and power to the families of their mothers. This 
instruction led, as was but natural, to the use of the artifices 
of the skilled courtesans on the part of the Mikado’s wives 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


57 


and concubines, and caused the inexperienced boys to indulge 
in sexual excesses that could not fail to ruin their health, and 
render them weak voluptuaries, helpless tools in the hands of 
the courtiers. 

This scheme of corrupting Princes and Monarchs, by the 
means of seductive women, has been employed in all ages 
and all countries by unscrupulous courtiers and fanatical 
priests, but only for short periods of time, and on weak or 
vicious members of the ruling families. But in Japan it 
became a national custom, being practiced on her Milako 
and the Princes Imperial during 1200 years, on 73 genera¬ 
tions, without intermission. And the Fujiwara family, the 
hereditary high priests who introduced that scheme in Japan, 
is yet the leading one of the aristocracy of the country; its 
relatives are the most numerous and influential, and it fur¬ 
nishes yet wives for the Monarchs. Komei, the Mikado who 
ruled (1847-1867), before the late Mutsu Hito, had a Fuji¬ 
wara woman as wife, and so has the present Emperor, Yoshi 
Hito. 


17. HOW DECEITFULNESS BECAME A NATIONAL 
VICE 

By their gradual usurpation of the supreme power, the 
Fujiwara deceived both the Monarchs and the people, during 
several hundred years; but that was not a sign of extraor¬ 
dinary depravity on the part of the usurpers; it was in keep¬ 
ing with the spirit of the times. The immigration from the 
East Asiatic countries that commenced in the 4th century 
A. D. brought with it the Chinese and Korean civilization, but 
also Oriental vices. The Ainu, the primitive Japanese popu¬ 
lation, whom enti-rely to subdue the conquerors spent 1500 
years, were, and are yet, honest and faithful, like most mar¬ 
tial savages; and since the invaders took Ainu women as 


58 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

wives, it is to be believed that some of their virtues were 
inherited by their offspring. But since the new East Asiatic 
civilization had been introduced in Japan, the character of 
the whole people seems to have become permeated with Orien¬ 
tal vices which probably had been dormant in them, as the 
inheritance from the ancestors of the invaders. Extravagant 
living, dishonesty, avaricious greed of public officials, shame¬ 
less immorality of men and women in all stations of life, 
and insatiable ambition, were the order of the day under the 
imported civilization. But the historians of that period agree 
that there was no ostentatious, immodest display of the pre¬ 
vailing vices and immorality. The latter were covered with 
a veil of apparent modesty, reverential politeness, and fine 
phrases. The deceit practiced by the Fujiwara upon the 
Mikado, and the example set by the Buddhist priests of 
“living a lie”, notwithstanding the beautiful teachings of their 
own religion, and of the Chinese classics, were imitated by 
the people, high and low, and made deceitfulness a national 
Japanese characteristic till the present day. A contributory 
cause for the spread of this vice among the people was 
formed by the wars which were the outcome of the Fujiwara 
usurpation, and have been waged during nearly 1000 years, 
with the result of all the wars extended over a long period 
of time and in a limited territory, of nourishing the lowest 
passions of men, and breeding their worst vices. 


18. ANCIENT FORM OF DUAL GOVERNMENT 

The Fujiwara were not inclined to the military life, and 
therefore, as soon as they had become well established in the 
supreme power, and filled the civil offices with their relatives, 
they left the military department in the hands of the leaders 
of two noble families, the Taira and the Minamoto, which 
were founded in the 9th century, the former by a descendant 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


59 


of Mikado Kwammu (782-806), the latter by a son of 
Mikado Seiwa (859-877). Both families soon became rivals, 
each of them being ambitious to supersede the Fujiwara, who 
ruled the Court and the country; and the wars between 
them and their principal partisans were not finally settled 
until 1869, after the establishment of the present government. 
The great fight commenced in the middle of the 12th cen¬ 
tury and led to the supremacy of the great Taira warrior, 
Kiyomori, who abolished the rule of the Fujiwara. But in 
the end of the same century Yoritomo, the chief of the Mina- 
moto family, almost extinguished the Taira, and became the 
actual ruler of Japan, under the title of “Sei-i-tai-Shogun”, 
the “barbarian expelling great general.” 

The Mikado were nonentities, ascending the throne 
mostly as boys, in accordance with the Fujiwara custom of 
making children Mikado, and letting them abdicate when 
they were old enough to understand their situation, and liable 
to be unruly. Under the Fujiwara the last Mikado were 
Horikawa, who was 9 years old when, in 1087, he became the 
Monarch; he died in 1107, at the age of 29 years. His suc¬ 
cessor, Toba, was 6 years old when put upon the throne, and 
abdicated before reaching his 23d year. Sutoka became 
Mikado at the age of 6 years, and abdicated when 23 years 
old. Konoye was 4 years old when put on the throne, and 
died when 17 years old. Under the Taira, Go Shirakawa. 
30 years old, ascended the throne after Konoye’s death, but 
was forced to abdicate three years later. He was succeeded 
by Nijo, 17 years old, who died at 23 years of age. Next 
came Rokujo, 3 years old, who died when 13 years old. His 
successor, Takakura, ascended the throne at the age of 9 
years, and abdicated at the age of 20 years. All of them who 
did not die before, were married when 15 years old, and 
some even at 14. Autoku became the next Mikado, when a 
child of 3 years, and died at 8 years. Under the latter's 


60 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


reign Yoritomo, one of the greatest men of the Japanese race, 
gained the complete control of the government, and estab¬ 
lished the dual rule of Mikado and Shogun, which lasted till 
1868. He took the last prerogative, that of collecting taxes 
for the support of the Court, from the Mikado who were 
thus not only without any political power, but even depending 
on the ruling Shoguns for the means of living. 


19. THE WARS BETWEEN THE RULING FAMILIES 

Yoritomo took all the measures possible to secure the 
Shogunate to his family. During the previous 300 years 
leading military men serving under the Taira and Minamoto 
families had been endowed with some of the land they had 
helped to conquer. Thus Kijomori, while Daijo Daijin, 
divided between 60 leading members of the Taira a territory 
embracing 30 provinces. His successor, Yoritomo, provided 
in the same manner for his relatives, and succeeding Shoguns 
followed the custom. These beneficiaries became the Terri¬ 
torial Princess, called Daimyo (great names) and Shomio 
(small names). To them were added men of ability who, 
for valuable services rendered to the leading families, had 
been rewarded with large gifts of land, and adventurers who, 
through force or treachery, during the turbulent war times, 
had been able to get control of some territory whose real 
owner had died or been murdered, and retained possession 
of both the land and the title connected with it. These 
Daimyo became proud Princes, lording it over the popula¬ 
tion like independent rulers, by keeping, each, a number of 
military retainers, who recognized no authority but that of 
their respective Lords. They were the Samurai, or Bushi, 
who were organized by Yoritomo as the class of two- 
sworded noblemen, which flourished until 1873, when it was 
disbanded. 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 61 

It is a fact which throws a strong light upon the state 
of lawlessness prevailing in Japan during the existence of 
the Daimyo, or Territorial Princes, that, excepting very 
few of them who had been endowed with their lands in 
the 9th century, they had no title nor right to their land, 
which, according to Japan’s fundamental law, belonged to the 
Mikado and could only by them be feoffed to anybody. But 
might was right in the seven centuries of the Shogun rule, 
as it had been during the four centuries of the Fujiwara 
usurpation; only with this difference, that the latter endeav¬ 
ored to keep peace in the country and exhibited statesman¬ 
ship in their rule, while under the Shoguns and Daimyo it 
was brutal force that ruled supremely. 

The country was nearly equally divided between the 
adherents of the two great families, the Taira having theirs 
in the South and West, and the Minamoto theirs in the North 
and East. The wars for the superiority of one or the other, 
thereby became a war of the clans, which bred an intense 
hatred of their enemies in all the members of each clan. 
That such a war was almost endless, and increased in feroc¬ 
ity after every battle, was a natural sequence; and the mis¬ 
ery, the poverty, the loss of life and property, the disease, 
and the sufferings it brought, during the six hundred years 
from 1000 to 1600 A. D., upon the non-combatant people 
are indescribable, while the Daimyo and their fighting men, 
the Samurai, gratified their greed for power, and indulged in 
all the vices which centuries of civil war cannot fail to pro¬ 
duce. The “Nihon Guaishi”, one of the three great historical 
works of Japan, and considered as reliable, fills several vol¬ 
umes with the relation of the wars of the “Hei and Gen”, as 
the Taira and Minamoto were called, and of the wars be¬ 
tween the Daimyo, that followed. In that history the Sho¬ 
guns are accused of having caused those wars by their for¬ 
cible usurption of the Mikado’s prerogatives. 


62 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


But that is only partly true. The Fujiwara priests who 
had charge of the Mikado could have prevented all that 
internecine strife, if they had either properly raised their 
future Mikado and educated them to become able men and 
the real rulers of the country, or if they had confined them 
entirely to their religious duties and created a Monarchy 
whose head were to conduct the country’s worldly affairs. 
But the Fujiwara high priests did the reverse. They ruined 
the Mikado by making them superstitious fanatics and 
effete voluptuaries, and deceived the people by teaching them 
that their Mikado were superior “divine” beings. They did 
so for the benefit of the Shoguns who supplied the Court and 
the priests with the means of living, and gave them valuable 
presents and land to their relatives, so that gradually more 
than half of the landed aristocracy were more or less closely 
related to the priestly Fujiwara family. 


20. MIKADOS BECOME DEGENERATES 

During these wars the Mikado, consequently, sunk 
lower with every generation. The before quoted ex-consul, 
Prof. J. H. Langford, writes in his “Story of Japan”: 

“The last Mikado who was a political factor was 
Go-Daigo, in the 14th century. Since then not one single 
occupant of the throne directly interfered in the affairs 
of state. Some of them, while on the throne, never 
passed the stage of boyhood, but those who did had 
been brought up in such a manner that they were equally 
destitute of manhood, of mental and physical energy, 
and could not, if they would, make their names a power 
to influence the government. They were immured in 
their palaces in the society of women and courtiers little 
better informed than themselves, cut off from all the 
actual intelligence of their Empire. And at their palace 
gates they were watched and guarded by emissaries of 
the Shogun, whose duty it was to see that nobody had 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


63 


access to them, on whose devotions to the Shogun the 
guards could not implicitly rely.” 

But in Japan history repeated itself very quickly. The 
first Shogun, Yoritomo, had only been dead a few years 
when the family of his wife, Masago, did with the succeed¬ 
ing Shoguns what Yoritomo had done with the Mikado. 
The Shoguns became the helpless tools in the hands of the 
powerful Daimyo, while nobody seemed to care any more 
for the Mikado. One of the best informed foreign writers, 
of the Japanese government, describes in one of his pub¬ 
lications the condition of the Mikado and Shoguns under 
the rule of the Daimyo as follows: 

“Nobody took any thought about the Imperial Court. 
Resources to bury an Emperor or crown him had to be 
begged or borrowed; and even the necessaries of daily 
life could scarcely be procured by the Sovereign’s house¬ 
hold. The Shogun himself was an object of almost 
equal neglect. If splendid example of fealty and hero¬ 
ism illumine the miserable story, its gloom is deepened 
by as many instances of treachery and self-seeking. Re¬ 
tainers did not hesitate to murder their Lords, lieuten¬ 
ants to mutiny against their captains. The probable re¬ 
ward of treason had become the commonest reward of 
fidelity. Short intervals of peace and rest varied the 
long battle. The details cannot be reduced to any easily 
intelligible shape. They are nothing more than vicissi¬ 
tudes that befell Lord after Lord, family after family, in 
a universal resort to arms.” 

Treachery was not the worst characteristic vice, though, 
of the men in high and low ranks who fought the battles of 
the Daimyo, but their clannish hatred. It caused the estab¬ 
lishment of a custom for the victors to kill, after a battle 
or successful siege, every one of the defeated enemies, from 
the Lord of the clan and every member of his family, down 
to the lowest soldier, and to confiscate, for the benefit of 


64 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


the victors, every kind of property and the land of the 
slaughtered people. There is no doubt that the whole 
nobility was, at the beginning of the 16th century, possessed 
of no sense of humanity, honor, or of any respect for their 
lawful rulers. Nor were their own subordinate nobles any 
better. Every member of the military class, no matter 
whether he occupied a high or low position, was imbued with 
a burning desire to obtain a higher position that would bring 
him and his family honors and an increase of his landed 
possessions. And when it is considered that this class, the 
Daimyo and their followers, had practically been the rulers 
of the country since the beginning of the 14th century, it 
can easily be imagined that they were, during the following 
centuries, the curse of the whole country, and that the com¬ 
mon people had suffered indescribably during that time. Their 
farms were destroyed, their harvests stolen, their huts 
burned down, their women outraged, the owners murdered 
by the thousands almost every year, and the survivors robbed 
by the soldiers of both the belligerent parties. 


21. END OF THE CIVIL WARS AND PEACE 
ESTABLISHED IN 1600 

The whole non-military people were, therefore, glad¬ 
dened when, in the middle of the 16th century, Oda Nobun- 
aga, a distinguished soldier, an offspring of the Taira family, 
undertook to subdue the Daimyo, and also the fighting 
Buddha priests who had, of late years, infected by the gen¬ 
eral greed for the spoils of war, taken a very active part in 
the feuds between the noblemen. Nobunaga killed thou¬ 
sands of them, burnt down their temples, captured and 
deposed the ruling Shogun and many Daimyo, but was, in 
1582, assassinated before he could complete the task of paci¬ 
fying the whole country. It was continued by two of his 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


65 


generals, Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu, the latter an offspring of 
the Tokugawa family, which was a branch of the great 
Minamoto. They finished the work of subduing the Daim- 
yo, which Nobunaga had commenced. The fighting was 
extremely savage, and ended, in 1600, by the defeat of the 
two last and most powerful Daimyo, the princes of Satsuma 
and Choshiu, Iyeyasu, the victor, thereby became the ruler of 
Japan, under the Mikado, who made him Sei-i-tai-Shogun. 


22. THE TOKUGAWA PEACE ERA 

Iyeyasu was, besides his. ancestor, Yoritomo, the great¬ 
est statesman Japan has ever produced. He undertook, with¬ 
out delay, the difficult, but very necessary, work of reorgan¬ 
izing the whole country. He caused the land fit for agricul¬ 
ture to be surveyed and re-distributed, and swamp and tim- 
berland drained and cleared to increase the limited supply 
of farmland. He established offices throughout the country 
for the purpose of keeping law and order everywhere, and 
left nothing undone to restore prosperity among the agri¬ 
cultural and trading classes, and protect them against any 
disturbance or violence from the Daimyo and their mili¬ 
tary retainers. The same journalist and author, Capt. 
Brinckley, mentioned before as one of the best foreign 
authorities on Japanese history, writes about this great Jap¬ 
anese statesman: 

“Iyeyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa dynasty, 
undoubtedly aimed at establishing his government on the 
will of the people. The words addressed by him to the 
nobles who surrounded his death-bed were unequivocal: 
‘My son has come of age. I feel no anxiety for the 
future of the State. But should my successor commit 
any great fault in his administration, do you administer 
affairs yourselves. The country is not the country of 
one man, but the country of the nation. If my descend- 


66 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


ants lose their power because of their own misdeeds, I 
shall not regret it.’ To his son Hidetada he said: /Take 
care of the people. Strive to be virtuous. Never neg¬ 
lect to protect the country/ He increased the income of 
the Mikado and the Imperial family, and did nothing to 
impair the stability of the throne. But he emphatically 
asserted the absolute right of the Shogun to exercise the 
executive authority independently of the Sovereign, 
himself accepting at the same time the responsibility of 
preserving public peace and order. Furthermore, a code 
of 18 laws enacted by him, for the control of the fiefs, 
had his signature only, and did not bear the sign manual 
of the Mikado.” 

Iyeyasu thus showed that the Mikado were only figure¬ 
heads, kept in their places for the purpose of keeping the 
people under the rule of the Shoguns as the representatives 
of the nobolity which was the most intelligent class of the 
nation. Like every other Shogun, he desired the Shogunate 
to remain in his family after his death, and therefore sub¬ 
divided the country between the Daimyo in such a manner 
that one of his adherents was located near one of his former 
enemies. Besides that, he arranged the division so that, out 
of a total of 270 Daimyos, his vassals numbered 168, thus 
giving him and his successors a majority in case of a gen¬ 
eral council of the Territorial Princes being held. To keep 
all the Daimyo under control, one of Iyeyasu’s successors 
established the rule that every one of them must stay, to¬ 
gether with his family, several months of each year in 
Yedo, the Shoguns’ capital. The rule was, later on, so 
amended that, during the absence of the Daimyo from Yedo, 
his family had to stay there as hostages for his good behavior 
when absent. While these regulations did a great deal to 
secure the peace in the whole country, they became, in 1868, 
one of the causes of the overthrow of the last Tokugawa 
Shogun, because the Daimyo considered the restraint put 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


67 


upon them as a personal insult for which they took revenge 
at the opportune time. 

One of Iyeyasu’s erroneous political actions was his 
antagonism against the immigration of white race people, 
their traders, and principally the Christian religion. There 
is no doubt that this hostility was caused by the fear that 
the whole civilization of the Japanese people, and also their 
government, would be changed through the predominance of 
Christianity over the Shinto Cult, as will be shown in another 
chapter. 

But, otherwise, Iyeyasu did a great many things for his 
people which entitled him to the honors conferred upon him 
after his demise in 1616. He was apotheosized by the Shinto 
priests; the most beautiful shrine ever built in Japan was 
erected over his tomb, near Kiddo, where multitudes of pat¬ 
riotic Japanese worshipped his “divine” spirit. The Mikado 
sent every year, up to 1868, when the Shogunate was abol¬ 
ished, an enjoy with appropriate offerings to his grave. 

23. EFFECT OF THE TOKUGAWA PEACE ERA 

Iyeyasu was followed by fifteen Shoguns of his family, 
all of whom were men of peace and established the longest 
era of peace the Japanese people were ever blessed with. For 
it was also an era of prosperity for the great masses of the 
people. It lasted 268 years, from 1600 to 1868. The popu¬ 
lation was, at that time, divided into three classes, the “un¬ 
clean,” Eta, who, on account of their occupation of killing 
and skinning certain animals, were not allowed to mix with 
the other people who were composed of the agricultural and 
trading class, and the military nobles, whose highest mem¬ 
bers were the Territorial Princes, the Daimyo, of whom the 
Shoguns were the leaders. The Imperial House formed a 
class apart from, and superior to, all the other people; but 


68 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


closely allied with it were the Kuge, or Court nobles, most 
of whom were relatives of the Imperial House and members 
of the Fujiwara family. The members of the Court lived 
separate from all other noble or ignoble families, but pos¬ 
sessed a powerful influence with the people through the 
Shinto priests, who guided and attended the Mikado in his 
daily prayers and devotions and, together with the Kuge, had 
charge of his “divine” person. 

The Daimyo had, each, a number of inferior nobles, 
the Karo, the Hatamato, and Gojekin, who obtained their 
income from some land allotted to them by their Lords. 
Besides them, each Daimyo had a number of Samurai, tilt 
professional soldiers who, in the 12th century, as stated 
before, had been organized as the class of two-sworded 
nobles. In each clan there were a limited number of Samu¬ 
rai who also had land from which they drew a sufficient 
income to live with their families in comfortable circum¬ 
stances. They were the “high-class” Samurai mentioned 
heretofore. They had nothing in common with the “low- 
class” Samurai, except that they both were obliged to fight 
for their Daimyo. Otherwise their modes of life and char¬ 
acter were entirely different. The low-class Samurai had 
no land, their Daimyo furnished each of them a certain 
measure of rice every day, and a low wage, which, in time 
of war, was augmented by plunder, but in time of peace was 
their only income, because their rank of noblemen forbade 
them to do any menial labor, thereby rendering them as poor 
as they were proud. The well known statesman, Count 
Okuma, once a low-class Samurai, states in his book, “Fifty 
Years of Japan” (1909) : 

“Besides the Court nobles attached to the Emperor 
were feudal chiefs, to whom the Samurai (as hereditary 
vassals) were subject. The latter were also divided into 
higher and lower, of which the higher were few and 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


69 


rich, and alone had the privilege of sharing in local ad¬ 
ministration. The latter were the poorest and most 
numerous, and, however able-minded, were in a condi¬ 
tion of subservience to their betters.” 

The peace era affected the different classes of the people 
mostly favorably. Agriculture, trade, and commerce pros¬ 
pered, of course, much better than in the civil wars. The 
Tokugawa Shoguns often taxed the people heavily, but also 
kept law and order in the country through officials who saw 
to it that no hostile, brutal .Samurai, or overbearing Daim- 
yo robbed the farmers’ harvest, burnt down their huts, or 
abused or maltreated them or their families. To the com¬ 
mon people the peace era was, consequently, a blessing, 
The nobility fared also better than in times of war, except¬ 
ing the low-class Samurai of those Daimyo who had been 
hostile to the Tokugawa when Iyeyasu put an end to the 
civil wars. The income of none of the Daimyo increased, 
because they were not allowed to conquer new territory. 
Yet they had to support all their lower nobility and especially 
the low-class Samurai who had no land. The Fudai Daimyo 
were favored by the Shoguns who employed their lower 
nobility in the thousands of offices established throughout the 
country. But the formerly hostile Daimyo were not shown 
such favors; they had to feed their fast increasing Samurai 
as best they could; and it is a matter of course that, during 
a peace-era of over 250 years, the Daimyo who received no 
favors from the Shoguns felt the support they had to give 
their idle soldiers severely, while the latter became, through 
their increasing poverty, a dangerous element of the popu¬ 
lation. As these low-class Samurai have played the leading 
role in Japan’s politics ever since the country was opened to 
the world, in 1854, by Commodore Perry, it is necessary to 
show their exact condition at that time; and for that pur¬ 
pose a quotation is herewith adduced from an old publica- 


70 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


tion whose writer had, before the establishment of the new 
government in 1868, made a careful study of the condition 
of the different classes of the population, and described the 
life of the military retainers in the early sixties, thus: 

“The military men who, while the civil wars lasted, 
had not acquired property and land, had to depend, for 
their maintenance, on the masters whom they had served. 
And many of these masters must have found it hard to 
satisfy the numerous claims, and to stop the hungry 
mouths of faithful vassals. Many of them received small 
offices and posts to which land and other sources of in¬ 
come were attached; but the great majority were obliged 
to be taken over as the personal followers of their Lords 
into the new condition of life. It is evident that, in this 
way, pay and fare would not be very considerable: Rice 
for one to four persons, and four to eight dollars, 
(American money), a year was all such a soldier 
received. 

“For this he had to keep watch at the castle, walk 
the streets in his Lord’s suite, and several times a year, 
on particular occasions, show himself in a silk gown of 
ceremony. The rest of the time he had at his own dis¬ 
posal, and as the honor of his class forbade him to 
engage in any business or handiwork, nothing else was 
left to him but to idle about in tea-houses and brothels, 
and to become a useless, if not a dangerous, member 
of society. In this way the most capable and the most 
violent of their class were raised. In them the traditions 
of the old times still lived. They attempted, by a disso¬ 
lute life, to deaden the feelings of uselessness which 
would often creep over them, and if debts or the com¬ 
mission of a crime compelled them to turn their back on 
their own homes, they roamed about as masterless men, 
or Ronins. 

“Many improved their fate, and attempted, as shop¬ 
keepers or schoolmasters, to earn their own livelihood 
honorably, but the majority led a wild life in one of the 
great cities, Yedo, Ozaka, or Kioto. They were fhe 
instruments of every conspiracy, whether the object was 
revolution or assassination; and their lot might be even 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


71 


considered enviable, if they ended their life in an hon¬ 
orable fight or in a tavern brawl, and not on the rack 
or by the sword of the executioner.” 

The description of the character of the lower type of the 
Samurai given herein has not been exaggerated. The records 
of the foreign Legations during the 20 years from Commo¬ 
dore Perry’s first landing, in 1853, till the Samurai were 
disbanded as a class and pensioned, in 1873, are filled with 
reports and complaints about the murders, arson, and other 
similar deeds of violence committed by these idle soldiers. 
And the Japanese Authorities had to pay millions of dollars 
to the foreign governments for the criminal acts of those 
men who have, nevertheless, since 1868, controlled the ruling 
power of their country, and do so still. The manner in 
which poor, low-class Samurai could achieve such a political 
success has been very cleverly hidden by them, but the truth 
can be unravelled by a short outline of the history of modern 
Japan. 


24. THE COURT OF MIKADO KOMEI HOSTILE TO 
WHITE FOREIGNERS 

The ill-paid, idle Samurai planned, time and again, to 
break up the Tokugawa peace era, but unsuccessfully, be¬ 
cause the Court and Mikado which were controlled by the 
Shinto priests were, by the latter, kept on good terms with 
the Shoguns, and not allowed to intrigue against them. But 
the arrival of Commodore Perry’s warships caused a radical 
change in the relations between the Shoguns and the Court, 
and brought the Samurai • of the most powerful clans sud¬ 
denly into hostile action against the ruling Tokugawa family. 
The request of the American commander that the ships of 
his country be allowed to come to Japan and trade there 
caused the Shinto priests at the Court to become wild with 


72 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

excitement. They knew, from their historical records of the 
16th and 17th centuries, that the white race traders were 
soon followed by Christian priests and missionaries who, in 
their preaching, condemned the Shinto Cult, and endeavored 
to put the Christian religion in its place. They also remem¬ 
bered that the Japanese government had at that time declared 
the preaching and teaching of Christianity to be a crime, and 
ordered all the white race foreigners excepting a few Hol- 
landish traders, to leave Japan, never to return. And the fact 
that the government had, from 1614 to ’40, caused nearly 
300,000 native and white race Christians to be tortured to 
death in the most cruel manner, without the government of 
any of the white race Christian nations endeavoring to obtain 
redress from Japan for those barbarous acts, was the boast 
of the ruling classes, especially of the low military element. 
Besides that, ever since 1636 the Dutch traders had sub¬ 
mitted to humiliating conditions to be allowed to carry on 
their business in Japan, which brought them enormous profits. 
All these facts had contributed to make the Japanese, with 
the exception of a few highly educated noblemen who ob¬ 
tained books and their information about the outside world 
from China, believe that the people belonging to the white 
race were cowards, and the overbearing priests and courtiers 
had, therefore, in 1853, no doubt that their people could 
drive the four American ships, with their crews of 1000 
sailors and marines, from the Japanese harbors, as easily as 
they had kept all the foreigners, except the few admitted 
Hollanders, away from Japan since 1641. 

But they saw, to their great surprise, that the Shogun, 
Iyeyoshi, made no effort to compel the American ships to 
leave. To the contrary, he negotiated politely with their 
Commodore for time to consider the request of the United 
States. For Iyeyoshi was a well informed man; he knew 
that Japan’s neighbor across the Pacific Ocean was one of 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


73 


the great world powers, and would not suffer to be treated 
like the small country, the Netherlands, was known to be. 
On the other hand, he was well aware of the enmity his 
own government, and the Tokugawa family, would incur 
from the Shinto priests and the idle Samurai throughout the 
country, who thirsted for war against the hated white 
invaders,—if he were to open Japan to the Americans. Com¬ 
modore Perry granted the extension of time, and then re¬ 
turned with his ships to America to report to his government. 
Before he returned to Japan the Shogun fell sick and died 
after a very short illness. It was reported that the worry 
. over the arrival of the American ships had caused his death; 
but the prevailing and, no doubt, correct belief was that he 
had been poisoned by a near relative who feared that the 
Shogun might favor the foreigners. 

When Perry returned to Japan the ministers of the late 
Shogun complied with his request, and concluded the desired 
treaty with the United States, and, a few months later, an¬ 
other one with England. The new* Shogun, Iyesada, was a 
weakly youth, a fact which seems to have been made use 
of by the priests and some of the anti-foreign courtiers to 
hold a council, in which the action of the Shogun’s govern¬ 
ment was denounced as contrary to the interests of Japan, 
and it was concluded that the Mikado could never sanction 
the treaties made with the United States and England. The 
decisions adopted by the Court council were put in writing, 
signed by the Mikado, and sent to the Shogun’s ministers. 
This was an affront to the Tokugawa Shoguns, the like of 
which had not been offered them by the Court during the 
250 years of their rule; and the Shogun’s ministers answered 
the insult by appointing the ablest and most energetic men of 
their class and party, Ji Kamon no Kami, the Daimyo of 
Hikone, to the position of Regent for the young Shogun. 
He ignored the Court entirely, and concluded treaty after 


74 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


treaty with the foreign nations, but made them as advan¬ 
tageous as possible to Japan. 


25. CONDITION OF THE MIKADOS 

The Regent was a loyal man, and did not want to show 
any disrespect to the Mikado; but he meant to perform the 
functions of the Shogun, notwithstanding the opinions and 
opposition of the priests and those courtiers who had become 
hostile to the Tokugawa family. This cabal was under the 
leadership of two Court nobles, Iwakura Tomomi and Sanjo 
Saneyoshi, who were instigated by their own ambition to ob¬ 
tain the Supreme Power to overthrow the Tokugawa Shoguns, 
and for that purpose intrigued with the Samurai of some 
of the clans which had -been hostile to the great Iyeyasu 
and vanquished by him. The 250 years that had passed 
since that time had not extinguished in the subdued clans 
the feeling of revenge. 

All the native writers, and even also the foreigners who 
have described the historical events of this period of Japan¬ 
ese history, have stated that the hostility of the Court against 
the white race foreigners emanated from the Mikado,—a 
willful misrepresentation on the part of the native authors, 
and a gross error of the foreign writers, which they could 
have easily avoided, if they had studied the historical rec¬ 
ords of Japan regarding the political status and the mode 
of living of the Mikado. 

It has been stated before that, from the rise of the Fuji- 
wara family as a political power, the Mikado had been 
used as idols through which the people were kept in political 
slavery by the ambitious military nobles. They were for 
that purpose made puppets, having neither a will of their 
own, nor energy or intelligence. The Tokugawa Shoguns 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


75 


employed the same methods. Of the 15 Mikado who occu¬ 
pied the throne from 1612 to 1868, when the present govern¬ 
ment was created, one was 7 years old when made the Sov¬ 
ereign, one 8 years, two 10 years, two 12 years, one 13 years, 
one 14 years, one 15 years, three 17 years, two 18 years and 
one 24 years. The latter, the only adult who became Mikado, 
reached the age of 74 years, but was allowed only to rule 
eight years; three boys, one of 10, one of 14, and one of 18 
years of age, succeeded to the throne during his life time. 
Japanese historians also state that these boy-Mikado were 
married when 15 years old, sometimes even earlier, and very 
seldom when older. But none of those writers have ever 
described the evil effect which these early marriages and the 
sexual excesses the inexperienced boys were led into by their 
wives and concubines, must have had upon them since the 
seventh century A. D., when the Fujiwara Kuambaku took 
charge of the Mikado. According to modern writers of the 
Samurai class the Mikados have, notwithstanding the unnat¬ 
ural mode of life forces upon them, become men of the 
highest intelligence, and mentally and morally leaders of 
their subjects. So wrote Count Okuma, the present (1915) 
Prime Minister, in his before-mentioned book: 

“The Japanese Empire is a country of Patriarchy. 
His Majesty’s rights are self-existent and developed nat¬ 
urally. Japan’s civilization has centered around the Im¬ 
perial House. The fine arts, morality, and literature, all 
have developed around it.” 

Count Okuma wrote that statement although he knew 
that it was utterly false. He had a patriotic purpose in view 
when he wrote it, and patriotism covers a multitude of deceit 
and falsehood in Japan. The truth about the conditions of 
the Mikado was published officially, in the early nineties of 
the last century, by a commission composed of a number of 
prominent physicians. When the present Emperor, Yoshi 


76 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


Hito, was crown-prince, he attended the school where the 
children of the nobility got their education. At the age of 
14 years he fell sick. The most prominent Japanese physi¬ 
cians and Prof. Baelz, a German specialist, who lectured at 
the time at the Tokio university, were placed in charge of 
the boy and reported that he suffered from “water on the 
brain.” But they added that the disease was inherited, and 
the whole Imperial family suffered from brain-disease and 
nervous disorders. Yoshi Hito was not sent to school again. 
His diseased brain had lost the faculty to remember his 
school lessons. To modern medical science the cause of this 
condition was no secret. The loss of the memory follows 
sexual excesses. And when it is considered that these 
excesses had been indulged in by boys, and continued during 
more than seventy generations, there can be no doubt that, 
long beforeB Yoshi Hito, the Mikado had become weak- 
minded, unable to obtain the simplest rudiments of an edu¬ 
cation, and were only fit to be biological factors for the 
continuation of a race of ignorant, helpless, human puppets, 
just such as the usurping noblemen needed for their politi¬ 
cal purposes, and which they had consequently caused to be 
bred since more than a thousand years. 

It is, therefore, but natural that Komei, the grandfather 
of Yoshi Hito, who was Mikado from 1847 to ’67, was nqt 
by any means a man of education or ability, but, like his 
ancestors, an ignorant figure-head in the hands of his priests 
and courtiers. This was well known to the Samurai and the 
higher nobility outside of the Court, but not to the common 
people. If they ever dared think of their Mikado’s early 
marriages, and their licentious lives in company with their 
numerous concubines, the belief in the Mikado’s divinity did 
not permit them to suspect that their Monarchs, the off¬ 
spring of the eternal Gods, could become degenerated human 
beings. And the constant reference in official announcements 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


77 


of both the Mikado’s Court and the Shogun’s government, 
to the “Imperial will” served to confirm the loyal common 
people in the belief that the Mikado ruled supreme, even 
controlling the Shoguns’ administrations, through their ances¬ 
tor worship devotions. 


26. PRIESTS, COURTIERS AND SAMURAI ALLIED 
AGAINST FOREIGNERS AND SHOGUN 
SINCE 1853 

It was, therefore, the popular belief that the Court’s 
opposition to the foreigners emanated from the Mikado, and 
the Court officials did not deny it, but made use of the 
popular error. After the conclusion of the treaties with the 
foreign powers, they announced that the Mikado disapproved 
of the policy of the Shogun, and demanded the immediate 
expulsion of all the foreigners and their ships from Japan 
and the Japanese waters. The priests, the moving power 
behind the throne, found in their opposition to the white 
nations fanatical allies among the low class Samurai of the 
Satsuma, Choshiu and Tosa clans which had been the sever¬ 
est sufferers in the war waged by Iyeyasu against the Daim- 
yo in the last years of the 16th century. But there was 
another cause for their allying themselves with the Court 
against the Tokugawa Shoguns. The latter belonged to the 
Minamoto family, while the three clans mentioned had, since 
the 9th century, been the most prominent partisans of the 
Taira, and the hatred between the clans that followed these 
two families since nearly 1000 years was as fierce and unre¬ 
lenting in the 19th century as ever before. In order to over¬ 
throw the Tokugawa Shoguns, to get rid of the foreigners 
whom every Samurai hated, and put an end to the peace-era, 
those three clans became the supporters of the anti-foreign 
priests and courtiers. 


78 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


The Regent, Ji Kamon no Kami, was well aware of these 
intrigues, and met the elements that threatened to disturb 
the peace very energetically, even after the Daimyo of a 
number of other clans had joined in the demand for the 
expulsion of the “barbarians” of Europe and America. Just 
at that time the young Shogun died, in August, 1858, under 
circumstances leading to the suspicion that he had also been 
poisoned in order to get a new Shogun, and put an end to 
the rule of the Regent. But the latter secured the appoint¬ 
ment of the 12-year-old Iyemoshi as Shogun, and thereby 
kept his own position as Regent, as which he punished all 
the hostile Daimyo with great severity. Those who had 
shown a desire to expel the foreigners were forced to resign 
as Territorial Princes and retire to private life. Others who 
had been more hostile were banished, some put in jail, and 
the worst offenders compelled to commit Harakiri, or be 
decapitated. 

The anti-foreign members of the Court were unable 
to oppose this energetic Tokugawa statesman openly, but they 
conspired with a prince of his own family, who was sus¬ 
pected of having poisoned the last two Shoguns. The fan¬ 
atical Samurai of the disaffected clans showed their opposi¬ 
tion to the Regent and his friendly policy toward the for¬ 
eigners by murdering foreign subjects and officials. When 
the Regent, nevertheless, continued punishing the criminal 
Japanese and establishing diplomatic relations with all the 
foreign nations which desired to trade with Japan, he was, 
in March 1860, murdered at broad daylight, in front of the 
young Shogun’s office, by a band of Samurai. According to 
Japanese custom the murderers left a paper at the place of 
the foul deed, on which they had given the reason for the 
murder in the statement that “the Regent had disobeyed the 
orders of the Mikado by not driving out the foreigners, and 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


79 


by putting to death and otherwise punishing patriotic Japan¬ 
ese who had desired to expel them.” 


27. A PERIOD OF LAWLESSNESS FROM 1860 TO ’68 

The time from the murder of the Regent in 1860 to 
the establishment of the present government in 1868, was a 
period of savage lawlessness caused, principally, by Samurai 
of the leading clans of the West and South, who were 
secretly encouraged by the conspirators at the Court. After 
first naming as the reason for their lawless conduct the, as 
they claimed, improper friendliness of the Shoguns to the 
foreigners, they acknowledged, in course of time, that they 
thought it necessary that the Tokugawa should be over¬ 
thrown. The ministers of the boy-Shogun were not ener¬ 
getic enough to put this rebellious opposition down with a 
strong hand, and when they perceived that their party was 
consequently losing ground, they appointed Yoshinobu to 
take the place of the murdered Regent. He was the son of 
a Prince of the Tokugawa family, whose intense hatred of 
the foreigners formed the main trait of his character. But 
Yoshinobu was, unlike his father, friendly to the white race 
people, and acted accordingly. He punished the offenders 
against the international treaties without regard to the 
enmity he thereby incurred, because he considered it his duty 
to prevent a rupture with any of the foreign powers. The 
consequence was that, while he protected the interests of his 
country, he injured his popularity and that of his family. 

Murders of foreign subjects increased from year to 
year. It often happened that the Shogun’s guards who 
were to protect the Foreign Representatives were ruthlessly 
slaughtered. The American and British Legation buildings 
were burned down at night time, after the native and foreign 
police officers who watched them had been murdered. For- 


80 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


eign ships were fired upon by batteries belonging to one of 
the clans that were hostile to the Shoguns, and similar acts 
of hostility constantly violated the amity treaties made by 
Japan with the Western powers. Yoshinobu repeatedly sent 
troops out to punish the rebellious clans, but not always with 
success. They even became emboldened to form an organ¬ 
ization called the “Sat-Cho-To”, from the first syllables of 
the names of the clans Satsuma, Choshiu and Tosa, whose 
announced purpose was the expulsion of the foreigners; and 
they were informed by members of the Court that the 
Mikado lauded their patriotic intentions. 

The ignorance of the priests and the hostile courtiers 
regarding the power of the foreign nations and the necessity 
of Japan keeping the treaties made with them, is almost 
incredible. In 1862, eight years after the first of the trea¬ 
ties had been concluded, the Court commanded the Shogun 
tc drive all the foreigners out of Japan without delay; ana 
when he informed the Court that he was unable to execute 
the order, it was only momentarily withdrawn, but renewed 
again in 1864. At that time the Shogun notified the Foreign 
Representatives of the demand of the Court which was con¬ 
sequently informed by the Legations that, in case of any 
further agitation of that kind on the part of Japanese Author¬ 
ities, the foreign governments would take belligerent action. 
After that menace the Court refrained from further similar 
agitation. 

But the conspiring between the Court nobles and the 
clans mentioned did not cease. In 1862 the Choshiu Samurai 
made an effort, by force of arms, to get possession of the 
person of the Mikado, so that the Daimyo of that clan 
might obtain the supreme power by becoming Shogun in 
place of the Tokugawa Prince. The Choshiu troops were 
not successful. The Aidzu clan, the most faithful adherents 
of the ruling Shoguns, had charge of the gates leading to 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


81 


the Mikado’s palace and prevented the capture of the Mon¬ 
arch. The leader of the conspiring courtiers, Sanjo Sane- 
yoshi, and seven of his followers, were punished by losing 
their ranks, titles, and positions, and being banished to a 
distant part of the country, where some of them died, while 
the others kept up their secret conspiracies. 

The effort to obtain the supreme power by getting pos¬ 
session of the Mikado was a common stratagem which had 
been employed in the past with varying success. It shows 
how helpless the Mikado were, for they had no personal 
following but the few Court nobles, while the military guards 
of the Territorial Prince who, as Shogun, or under some 
other title, was ruling the country, were in possession of the 
Imperial palace in which the Mikado was confined. If the 
guards were, in peace or war, overpowered by the military 
forces of another Daimyo or military leader; the latter be¬ 
came, through his possession of the person of the Mikado, 
the Ruler of the country, who supplied the Imperial family, 
the courtiers, priests and servants with the means of living, 
while the Mikado signed the laws and ordinances the Shogun 
chose to enact. It has been stated before, that sometimes 
when the Shogun himself was in the hands of Regents or 
unscrupulous Daimyo, the Court was allowed to suffer pri¬ 
vations, because the Mikado had, in such cases, no means 
of redress. Being unknown outside of their palaces, they 
could not appeal to the people. The lower classes could not 
have believed that their “diving” Sovereign, who was sup¬ 
posed to rule the entire nation, was unable to manage the 
Shogun, and would have taken any escaped Mikado to be 
an imposter or lunatic and killed him. 


82 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


28. LIFE OF THE LOW CLASS SAMURAI IN THE 
CAPITAL IN 1862 

Mr. Adams gives in his /‘History of Japan” the follow¬ 
ing description of the murderous habits of idle Samurai in 
Kioto in the sixties: 

“Several assassinations took place in Kioto during 
the end of 1862, the heads of the victims being often 
exposed in the streets. From the placards exhibited 
with the heads, it seemed that the men were murdered 
as having been engaged in what were termed traitorous 
schemes and in compassing the death of ‘patriots’. These 
assassinations were the work of ‘Ronins’, (Samurai who 
had left their clans). They became more and more 
emboldened by success, and even took it upon themselves 
to inflict punishment upon tradesmen for having charged 
what they considered exorbitant prices for their wares. 
It was a lawless time in Kioto, and I have been told by 
a native who used to inhabit the capital that hardly a 
day passed without blood being spilt. But it was not 
only on so-called traitors, or favorers of the Shogun’s 
government, that the ‘two-sworded men’ (Samurai) 
would draw their weapon. Flushed with his native 
liquor (which has the faculty of exciting quickly and 
intensely, but only for a short time), he would rush out 
into the streets, ready to try the temper of his blade 
on whatsoever he might meet. It might be another 
Samurai, equally flushed with liquor, equally intent on 
blood-shed; and then they met in the middle of the 
street, defied each other, and as neither would give way, 
they challenged, drew their long swords, and a mortal 
combat ensued. Or the drunken man saw a poor beg¬ 
gar, one of a despised race, lying in the road, full of 
sores, and would try his blade on this miserable object. 
A wretched dog came in his way, and he slashed at 
him. A dead body was not even safe from the roister¬ 
ers’ violence, and many a favorite cut has thus been 
dealt upon a corpse. But sometimes the inebriate Samu¬ 
rai would do what to us appears even more cowardly 
and disgusting. He would creep up behind a brother 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


83 


Samurai and, in pure jest, from love of blood, and again 
to try the temper of his sword, would cut down his un¬ 
suspecting victim, and then flee away. 

“Such murders, however, as I have particularly re¬ 
ferred to, in 1862, were political, and were then con¬ 
sidered by many Japanese as not only justifiable, but as 
proceeding from noble and disinterested motives. The 
‘Ronins’ were clamorous for the expulsion of foreigners, 
and were eager to assassinate any supporter of the Sho¬ 
guns’ government, because the latter had made treaties 
with the ‘barbarians,’ and were thus the ‘head and front 
of the offending’. These opinions were shared by the 
Court and the Western Daimyo.” 


29. DEATH OF SHOGUN IYEMOSHI AND MIKADO 
KOMEI 

The open hostility against the foreigners and the Sho¬ 
guns shown by the priests and leading nobles of the Court 
made it apparent that a change of the dual form of govern¬ 
ment was necessary, unless the country was allowed to 
drift into a civil war, or war with some or all of the treaty 
powers, whose patience with the deeds of violence constantly 
committed by the Samurai seemed almost to be exhausted. 
The consequence of this situation was that when, in 1866, 
Shogun Iyemoshi died, his Regent, Yoshinobu, although he 
was the head of the Tokugawa dynasty and therefore entitled 
to succeed as Shogun, refused to accept that position. From 
his experience of the past four years he was convinced that 
the Shogunate could not exist much longer, and that, as the 
occupant of the office, he would not be able to do justice to 
the foreigners, and at the same time keep peace in Japan. 

But before Yoshinobu found another man whom he 
could put in the deceased Shogun’s place, the Mikado, Komei, 
died, in January ’67, leaving his son, Mutsu Hito, to succeed 
him. The latter, being born in November ’52, had barely 


84 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


passed his 14th year; and his father had, when he fell sick, 
appointed a Tokugawa vassal as the boy-Mikado’s guardian 
and Regent of the country. He was a firm adherent of the 
Shoguns, but not energetic enough to hold the priests and 
nobles of the Court in check, who, as Yoshinobu had been 
informed, had of late commenced, together with the leading 
Samurai of the Sat-Cho-To combination, to agitate in favor 
of the “restoration of the ancient ‘One Man’ government of 
the first Mikado.’’ He knew that this plan could only be 
the subterfuge for some other scheme, because the degener¬ 
ated condition of the Imperial family members was, since 
centuries, no secret to the priests and all the military nobles. 
They were well aware of the mental unfitness of any off¬ 
spring, in the direct line, of the Mikado to be Ruler of 
Japan. What scheme the conspirators hid under this agita¬ 
tion Yoshinobu did not know, but he concluded that ,under 
those circumstances, it would be advisable for him to become 
Shogun, partly to guard his own and the Tokugawa family’s 
rights in the impending wrangle of ambitious Territorial 
Princes for the supreme power, partly to prevent, in such a 
struggle, the violation of the foreign treaties and disturb¬ 
ances of the peace. Under the name of Minamoto Reiki he 
accepted the office of Shogun. (Minamoto being the name 
of the great house which the Tokugawa sprung from, and 
Keiki the Chinese pronunciation of his name, Yoshinobu.) 

30. KEIKI, THE LAST SHOGUN, A PATRIOT AND 
PRINCE OF PEACE 

Foreign as well as Japanese historians have accused 
Keiki of having, through his ambitious plans, stood in the 
way of the restoration of the ancient Imperial government, 
and that he was, therefore, justly overthrown a year later. 
That view is, however, a grave injustice to a patriotic, cap- 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


85 


able, and honorable man, the only statesman of his time, who 
intended to give his country a truly modern government, and 
who was conspired against and finally overthrown because of 
his intentions to that effect. His tragical fate which, in the 
following pages, will be related, was not a necessity nor a 
benefit to Japan, but caused by the most fraudulent political 
plot known to modern history, by which not only the whole 
non-aristocratic people of Japan were grossly deceived, but 
also all the foreign nations. 

The proof of this statement is furnished by the political 
events that took place at the establishment of the present gov¬ 
ernment in 1868 and ’69. All the Japanese literature regard¬ 
ing the game of politics played in those years has been 
fabricated in the interest of the present ruling powers who 
have to hide the origin and character of their government. 
The most reliable authority about the happenings of that 
time is the before-mentioned Mr. Adams, of the British 
Legation, who, through his official relations with .the Shogun, 
and after the latter’s deposition, with his successors as the 
Rulers of Japan, had the best possible opportunity to observe 
what was going on in Japan on the field of politics at that 
time. In his “History of Japan” he furnishes the main 
facts hereinafter stated about the end of the Shogunate and 
the government which succeeded it. 

The circumstance that Keiki’s father, the Prince of 
Mito, was a fanatical foreign-hater and, not without cause, 
accused of having hired the murderers of the two Shoguns 
and of the Regent, Ji Kamon no Kami, to commit those 
bloody crimes, has given occasion to the suspicion that Keiki 
was also an unprincipled schemer. But that is an error. He 
had not inherited his father’s lust for murder and bloodshed, 
nor his prejudice against the white race. He had been 
well educated, knew the history of the foreign nations, and 
understood the tenets as well as the customs of the Western 


86 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

civilization. Native writers state that he was a man of the 
highest accomplishments. When 18 years old, he was well 
versed in all the manly exercises, such as horsemanship, 
handling the bow, the gun, the lance, and the sword; he also 
had the reputation of being an expert in the composition of 
Chinese and Japanese poetry, in the knowledge of history, in 
dramatic performances, and other such arts. 

Throughout his dealings with the Foreign Representatives 
and officials he showed himself as the best type of an high 
Japanese aristocrat who combined dignity with ability and 
humane feelings, in strong contrast to the Samurai whose 
cruel treatment of the common people was proverbial. Keiki 
gave numerous proofs of his statesmanship by his tact and 
skill in the pending negotiations with Russia about Saghalien 
Island, and with the American, English, and French Rep¬ 
resentatives, and others, regarding the opening of Japanese 
ports. He earned, thereby, the good will and respect of the 
foreign officials. In ’67 he gave an instance of his humanity 
by setting free 78 Christian natives at the intercession of 
Mr. Roche, the French Minister. And when one of these 
unfortunates was flogged by the Japanese officials before be¬ 
ing released, the brutal offenders were summarily punished 
by order of the indignant Shogun. But the more he did to 
guard the interests of his country by amicable negotiations 
with the foreign officials, the more incensed against him be¬ 
came the conspiring elements at the Court and in the clans. 
They feared that, by his successful management of public 
affairs, he might become popular enough to establish a new 
form of government in which the Mikado was probably to 
fill some kind of a pontifical position, while Keiki would 
have charge of the temporal affairs of the country, and thus 
become the real Ruler of the nation. It was to be expected 
that he would use that position to keep up friendly relations 
with the foreign powers, and continue the Tokugawa peace- 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


87 


era which had proved already so injurious to the Samurai, 
for many years more, while they wanted war, if possible, 
against the foreigners. At the Court the priests were unani¬ 
mous against such a government under the leadership of 
Keiki, because it would have meant the protection of the 
Christian missionaries and the spread of their religion 
throughout the country. They had, during the last 250 years, 
been loyal to the Tokugawa Shoguns on account of the anti- 
Christian and anti-foreign policy established by the great 
Iyeyasu. To support the foreign-friendly policy that Keiki 
had already initiated, would be suicidal for the Shinto priest¬ 
hood. The high priests, the Fujiwara, were not ignorant of 
the advance Christianity had made against every other religion 
in other parts of the world. And they foresaw the end of 
their own religion and political power, if the Christian relig¬ 
ion were allowed to be preached freely in Japan. Hence 
they concluded that Keiki must be overthrown, and they 
joined hands with the criminal element of the low class Sa¬ 
murai of the Sat-Cho-To combination to obtain the end. 


31. JAPAN’S GREAT GOVERNMENTAL FRAUD 
INITIATED 

In October ’67 the Ex-Prince of Tosa, who on account 
of the protection he had given to the murderers of some for¬ 
eigners, had been deposed as Daimyo of his clan, sent Keiki 
a letter asking him to resign as Shogun, in order that the old 
monarchial system of government might be restored which 
would, in dealing with the foreign nations, be more practical 
than the existing dual form; Keiki perceived that this was 
the beginning of the scheme by which it was intended to re¬ 
move him from the government, but he did not shrink back 
from the coming conflict. On November 9th he sent to the 
boy-Mikado’s guardian and Regent a Manifesto in which 


88 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

he resigned as Shogun with the understanding that he 
should exercise his administrative functions until, by an 
Assembly of the Daimyo soon to be called, the form of the 
new government should be determined. The 15th day of 
December was chosen as the day when the Assembly should 
convene. Keiki gave the assurance that he would abide by 
the decision of the assembled Daimyo. Mr. Adams, to 
whom and the other foreign Representatives, this was a mat¬ 
ter of the greatest importance, writes about it in his book: 

“The reluctance of Keiki to become Shogun is said 
to have arisen from the conviction forced upon him 
that the country had reached a great crisis, and could 
only be saved from many complications and disasters by 
the establishment of a government proceeding from a 
single center, that he, therefore, merely accepted the 
office in order to be in a position to abolish it. 

“There may well be truth in this, but although Keiki 
did judge rightly, if he considered that the days of the 
Shogunate were numbered, there seems little doubt that 
he cherished hopes of retaining, under another appella¬ 
tion, the power of his predecessors. Nay, more, it may 
be that, under the new order of things, with the creation 
of a central government, he thought he might be able, 
from his enormous revenues and from the number of 
vassal clans on whose support he counted, to rise to still 
higher powers.” 

Keiki has never, privately or publicly, announced what 
his hopes regarding the future government were. But it may 
be considered as certain that he expected, as every other 
Japanese would have done in his place, to be chosen by the 
Assembly of Daimyo as the leader, in some form or another, 
of the new government. In fact, it was a duty he owed his 
country that he should aspire to that position, because he 
was, by ability and experience as a statesman, by an honor¬ 
able character, by high birth, the merit of his ancestors dur¬ 
ing many centuries, and by liberal modern ideas, superior to 


' he Secrets of the Japanese Government 89 

all his countrymen. Besides that, he was of Imperial des¬ 
cent; the Tokugawa family, of which he was the head, was 
a branch of the Minamoto family, whose founder, Prince 
Tadazumi, was a son of Mikado Seiwa (859 to 880 A. D.). 
Of course, the offspring of this Prince had intermarried with 
more or less common people; but so had the Mikado done. 
Since many centuries the wives and concubines given them 
by their guardians were always selected from families not 
related with the Imperial House. The Imperial blood was 
consequently in the later generations considerably mixed, but 
nevertheless became so much diseased that, during the last 
1,000 years, there has only been one Mikado who possessed 
energy and intelligence enough to try to be the Ruler of his 
country, while the others were imbecile degenerates. The 
family to which Keiki belonged had, in the same time, given 
their country the two greatest soldiers and statesmen it has 
ever possessed, Yoritomo and Iyeyasu, and numerous other 
notable men. To show the high esteem in which this family 
was held even by the priests and nobles of the Court, as late 
as 1862, it may be mentioned that the Mikado’s sister, Kadzu, 
was in that year married to Shogun Iyemoshi, the predecessor 
of Keiki. And the good opinion Keiki had gained for him¬ 
self from the Legation officials was expressed by them at a 
meeting held shortly after his final deposition. Mr. Adams, 
who was present at the occasion, wrote about it: 

“The Foreign Representatives embraced the oppor¬ 
tunity to express to Keiki personally their high esteem 
and gratitude for the energy and loyalty with which he 
had caused Japan’s treaties with the foreign governments 
to be executed on the part of his government.” 


90 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


32. SAMURAI COMMIT HIGH TREASON BY TAKING 
POSSESSION OF THE BOY-MIKADO, 

MUTSU HITO 

On the 15th of December the Assembly of the Daimyo 
did not take place; in some secret manner it had been pre¬ 
vented. Keiki immediately requested the Court to appoint 
another day for the meeting which, however, was not done. 
Instead of that, leading Samurai of the Satsuma, Tosa, and 
some other clans of the West and South, the hereditary ene¬ 
mies of the Shogun’s family, came to Kioto, without apparent 
reason, and were stealthily followed by numerous other men 
of their clans. The Mikado’s residence stood on a large tract 
of land that had a strong enclosure with nine gates which 
were guarded by military retainers of the Aidzu clan, who 
had, in ’62, prevented the Choshiu men from capturing the 
Mikado. On January 3rd, 1868, the guards at all the gates 
were, simultaneously, overpowered by hostile Samurai. They 
entered the palace together with three Daimyo who assisted 
them, drove out all the courtiers who were loyal to the Sho¬ 
gun, and also forced the Mikado’s guardian and lawfully 
appointed Regent of the country, to leave the palace. The 
conspirators had brought with them some of the courtiers 
who, six years ago, had been discharged and banished for 
conspiring against Mikado Komei, and were now in league 
with the Samurai usurpers. 


33. THE NEW GOVERNMENT AN OLIGARCHY OF 
SAMURAI 

On the following day an “Imperial Decree” was pub¬ 
lished which was signed by the boy-Mikado. Mr. Adams 
gives the following copy of it: 

“It is the Mikado’s decree that all things be in 
accordance with the constitution created by Jimrriu Tenno 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


91 


(the founder of the Empire), that the nobles of the 
court and the military class, without discussion of rank, 
shall discuss matters fairly, in a fitting manner, and that 
his Majesty and the Empire may enjoy peace and tran¬ 
quility.” 

In conformity with this Decree the leading Samurai, 
three Daimyo and the Court nobles, the latter under the lead¬ 
ership of Sanjo Saneyoshi who, in ’62, had been the insti¬ 
gator of the effort of the Choshiu Samurai to obtain pos¬ 
session of the Mikado Komei, “discussed matters,” and de¬ 
clared the Shogunate abolished. In its place they created 
three different offices, the Sosai, Gijo, and Sanyo. The mem¬ 
bers of the first one were to be “Supreme Administrators,” 
having control of all the other government offices. The mem¬ 
bers of the second office were the advisers of the “Supreme 
Administrators.” Only Court nobles and Daimyo were to 
be members of these hvo offices. The third office, Sanyo, was 
a board of personal Advisers of the Mikado. Its member¬ 
ship was to be composed principally of Samurai, who were 
to be selected by the Mikado. 


34. THE FRAUD UNDERLYING THE PRESENT 
GOVERNMENT OF JAPAN 

The so-called “Mikado’s Decree,” and the establishment 
of the board of “Imperial Advisers,” or “Councilors of State,” 
as they were called later on, while their present title is 
“Privy Council,” form the foundation of the fraud upon 
which the present Japanese government has been built. Mutsu 
Hito was, at that time, a few weeks older than 15 years. He 
was tall for his age, and promised to become a man of large 
physique. But he had inherited the impaired mentai condi¬ 
tion of his ancestors. Every member of the Court, and the 
whole military nobility, was aware of this fact; it was known 


92 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


to them therefore, that neither this boy nor any other mem¬ 
ber of the Imperial House would be fit for any higher occupa¬ 
tion than the performance of the ancestor worship devotions 
which were guided by the high priests, and required only the 
low degree of intelligence to which the Mikado had been 
during the past centuries, reduced, first in the interest of the 
Fujiwara Regents, and later on in the interest of the Sho¬ 
guns. If the Samurai intended that the dual government be 
abolished by the deposition of the Shoguns, the supreme 
power could only be restored to the Imperial House by the 
appointment of guardians and Regents for the Mikado until, 
after several generations, the latter might, by proper medical 
treatment and the avoidance of sexual excesses and licentious 
living, have regained their health sufficiently to act as the 
Rulers of their people. 

But the Samurai had other intentions; they were as am¬ 
bitious and power-greedy as the Territorial Princes had been, 
and acted accordingly. They drove the lawfully appointed 
guardian and Regent out of the Palace and created a board of 
Imperial Advisers whose members the boy-Mikado should select 
from the Samurai class. A clumsy deceit, but which the peo¬ 
ple were unable to perceive, because of their belief in the 
young Ruler’s divinity by which he was thought to have re¬ 
ceived superior gifts and ability. But he was, in fact, incom¬ 
petent to select anybody as his Adviser, and, least of all, out 
of the Samurai class whose members had never been allowed 
admittance to the Imperial palace, and were all unknown to 
him. It was, therefore, a matter of course that the leading 
Samurai who had possession of the person of the young 
Mikado appointed themselves as his Advisers, while the 
priests who were in league with the Samurai informed the 
helpless boy that, since his time had to be spent in the daily 
devotions of his God-ancestors by whom the destiny of the 
people was shaped, the ordinary governmental work was to 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


93 


be left to his humble servants whom he appointed for that 
purpose, on the recommendation of the Samurai Advisers. 

The ignorant boy-Mikado was, of course, unable to per¬ 
ceive the fraud of which he was made the victim by the 
priests and Samurai, and thus became accustomed to sign 
every document submitted to him by his Advisers, and, oth¬ 
erwise, to do what they represented to him as being his offi¬ 
cial duties. That the low mental condition of the Mikado was 
very helpful to thus render him the obedient tool in the hands 
of his Samurai officials, at least as long as he was young and 
not self-willed, is self-evident. The Samurai Advisers, and 
those other officials that were allied with them, became thus 
the secret power behind the Throne, that ruled the country, 
while the ignorant people thought that it was being done by 
their young Ruler’s ancestor worship devotions. They, there¬ 
fore, readily believed that the Samurai had re-established 
Mutsu Hito in the supreme power of his first predecessor 
Jimmu, the Conqueror. This new government was hence¬ 
forth, fraudulently, called “the Restoration,” and the history 
of modern Japan dated from “the year of the Restoration.” 

The Foreign Representatives were, of course, not duped 
by the claim of the Mikado’s “divinity.” Mr. Adams shows 
that when he wrote: 

“The palace revolution was effected. The influential 
men of the Western clans, carrying with them a few 
individuals of the Daimyo class, and, in combination 
with* certain Court nobles, held possession of the Emper¬ 
or’s person, and issued laws in his name. 

“Among the most active promoters of the ‘Restora¬ 
tion’ were certain Samurai of Satsuma and Tosa, who 
will, subsequently, be found in high positions.” 

Count Okuma, who was one of the most active Samurai 
in the establishment of the new government, states in his 
book, “Fifty Years of Japan,” more particularly who the 
leading spirits of the “Restoration” were, as follows: 


94 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


“Thus the Restoration may be said to have been 
the result of an opportunity offered to those military 
retainers, low in rank but high in ability, to realize 
their ideals; and it must here be pointed out that those 
who had prominent positions and exercised wide influ¬ 
ence after the ‘Restoration/ were neither old Kuge 
(Court nobles), nor former feudal chiefs, nor retainers 
of higher standing, but only Samurai of the lower rank. 
Though the Restoration and the subsequent abolition of 
the feudal system were accomplished in the name of the 
nobles and feudal chiefs, the actual power behind the 
movements was other than they. The continuous peace 
of more than two centuries and a half, and the privi¬ 
lege of hereditary idleness, had deprived the higher 
nobles of their virility, and the Restoration’ had to be 
accomplished by the Samurai of the lower rank.” 

Another before mentioned Japanese publication, entitled 
“Japan, described and illustrated by Eminent Japanese author¬ 
ities and scholars ,” as one of whose authors Baron Kentaro 
Kaneko is named, emphatically gives the low-class Samurai 
the credit of having created the new government, thus: 

“The men that conceived and achieved the revolu¬ 
tion of 1868 were chiefly Samurai of inferior grade, 
without official rank or social standing. When the whole 
list of these agents is compiled, it is found to contain 
55 names, altogether, and among them are only 13 aristo¬ 
crats, that is, 5 Territorial Feudatories (Daimyo) and 8 
Court nobles. Nor can any of the 5 Feudatories be said 
to have acted a prominent part in the movement, while 
of the 8 Court nobles two alone (Iwakura and San jo) 
exercised a sensible influence on its result. The 42 men 
whose spirit formed the revolution, and whose hands 
carried it to completion, were young Samurai who , how¬ 
ever patriotic may have been the theories they professed, 
must be supposed to have been largely swayed by the 
promptings of personal ambition. The average age of 
the whole fifty-five did not exceed thirty years.” 

The same publication states about the first cause which 
led to the “revolution,” that: 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


95 


“The Satsuma dan originally promoted the revolu¬ 
tion, not with the intention of restoring the direct sway 
of the Sovereign, but with the hope of substituting for 
the Tokugawa administration that of their own chiefs, 
the Shimazu family.” 

The same authors name also the leading men who 
changed the plan of the Satsuma Daimyo, by putting their 
own schemes in its place: 

“Of the 55 whose united efforts had compelled the 
fall of the Shogunate, five stood conspicuous above 
their colleagues. They were Iwakura and Sanjo, two 
Court nobles; Saigo and Okuba, Samurai of the Sat¬ 
suma clan, and Kido, a Samurai of Choshiu. In the 
second rank came the younger Samurai, Ito, Inouye, 
Okuma, Itagaki, and a score of others called to the sur¬ 
face by the extraordinary circumstances with which 
they had to deal.” 


35. SAMURAI NOT LOYAL TO FORMER MIKADOS 

It may appear strange that in a country where, since 
mythical times, the people had been so fanatically loyal to 
their Rulers as never to have changed the dynasty, nor ever 
rebelled against them, an insignificant coterie of half a hun¬ 
dred of the lowest military retainers should have dared assail 
the Imperial guards, cap:ure the palace, and, by holding the 
Mikado in their possession, set up a new government over 30 
millions of people and expect to keep the supreme power in 
their hands. But it must be considered that the Samurai 
were, through their compulsory education, the most intelli¬ 
gent and best informed class of the whole nation; and that 
they did not share the belief of the common people in the 
divinity of the Mikados. Nor did they respect them even as 
their superiors. Captain Brinkley, the English author and 
journalist, who was closely connected with the Court, says in 


9o The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

his work “Japan” on the subject of the attitude of the Sam¬ 
urai to the Mikados: 

“The devoted fealty of the Samurai towards his 
Feudal Chief cannot be said to have extended to his atti¬ 
tude towards the Sovereigns. To the majority of the 
military class the Throne seems to have presented itself 
in the light of a comparatively unimportant abstraction. 
If the great Court nobles made a puppet of the 
Emperor in the early eras, the Samurai showed even less 
reverence in their bearing towards him in mediaeval time; 
and that the tendency of their minds was not, in any 
sense, monarchial, is a conclusion which forces itself 
upon the attention of any careful reader of Japanese 
annals. Kiso Yoshinaka, the ‘Morning Sun Shogun’, who 
struck the first strong blow at the Taira in the 12th 
century, openly declared that the ex-Emperor was a 
monk, the Emperor himself a baby, and the Regent 
a greater man than either of them. This mood showed 
itself very strongly in the time of the Ho jo. At the out¬ 
set of their career they came into collision with the 
Throne, and they marked their victory by deposing an 
Emperor, and banishing three Emperors to a remote 
island. Such arbitrary proceedings did not shock the 
bulk of the Samurai. They spoke of the attempt made 
by the ex-Emperor Gotoba to free himself from the 
Kamakura yoke as the ‘rebellion’ of the Sovereign. In 
their eyes the repository of the administrative power, 
namely, the Vice-Regent in Kamakura, was the Ruler of 
the Empire, and anyone of whatever station that ven¬ 
tured to oppose him, was a rebel. 

“A further development of this tendency took place 
under the administration of the same chieftains; their 
conception of the best form of government was evidently 
a military Oligarchy based on popular approval. The 
second of that venerable line of Vice-Regents, in con¬ 
junction with his 12 Councilors, promulgated a constitu¬ 
tion of 50 Articles, founded on the principles of human¬ 
ity and justice, without any reference to stereotyped 
formulae about the ‘virtues’ and ‘divinity’ of the Throne. 
The last of the Hojo Vice-Regents, Takatoki, did no 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


97 


violence to the custom of his time when he sent a force 
of soldiers to Kioto to dethrone the Emperor, and thus 
became responsible for the spectacle of a Sovereign flee¬ 
ing from his palace disguised in female garments. This 
Oligarchical tendency did not undergo any change with 
the fall of the Hojo. The commander of the soldiers of 
the succeeding Ashikaga chief instructed his followers 
thus: ‘If you want estates, take those of the Emperor. 
A living Emperor is a mere waster of the world’s sub¬ 
stance, and an obstacle to the people. He is not a neces¬ 
sity, but if we must have him, a wooden effigy will do 
equally well. ,, 

This extract from Japanese history, evidently appeared 
to the author rather impalatable to his Japanese friends in the 
government service; so he mitigated it by adding: 

“Probably such an extreme view had few adherents, 
but its expression did not provoke any remonstrance.” 


36. KEIKI PATRIOTICALLY AVOIDS HOSTILITIES 

The Samurai of 1868 had no more respect than those of 
the past centuries for their Sovereigns. But they were not 
desirous to let justice and humanity prevail in the govern¬ 
ment they established, but built it upon deceit and bloodshed. 
In shining contrast to the action of these low-class military 
retainers stood the proceeding of Shogun Keiki, the offspring 
of one of the oldest families of the highest aristocracy, and 
himself the type of a patriotic nobleman. While the new 
government was organized in the Imperial palace, Keiki was 
in his office in the same City. He forbade the Samurai of 
the Aidzu clan, his followers, to attack the conspirators, and 
refused to give his consent to any fighting whatever, because 
he wanted no blood to be shed over an affair that he was 
not inclined to take seriously. He confined himself to send¬ 
ing a notice to the men in possession of the Court, stating 
that he was still the Shogun, while they were lawless usurp- 


98 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


ers, and that the Assembly of the Daimyo alone had the 
right to establish a new government. The men in charge of 
the Court did not reply; whereupon Keiki, in order to avoid 
hostilities, concluded to depart. He went, accompanied by 
the troops of the Aidzu clan, to Ozaka where the port had 
just been opened to the foreign trade and the foreign Repre¬ 
sentatives and his own ministers of state were sojourning, 
with whom he desired to discuss the political situation at 
Kioto. 


37. KEIKI’S PUBLIC STATEMENT ABOUT HIS 
RESIGNATION 

The Legation officials had a meeting with Keiki, at which 
they desired to learn, with whom they should, in the future, 
deal in affairs of state. He explained the situation to them, 
as herein related; and after he had stated that the entire 
Japanese people were under the greatest obligations to his 
great ancestor, Iyeyasu, for having pacified the country, and 
established a rule of law and order which had prevailed dur¬ 
ing the last 250 years, he gave the facts about his resignation, 
which Mr. Adams, who was present, reports in Keiki’s words 
thus: 

“I had no other motives than the following. With 
an honest love for my country and my people, I wanted 
the nobles of the Empire to decide upon the reformation 
of the national Constitution. 

“In order that this great work might be carried out, 
his Highness, the Regent (who was appointed by the 
will of the late Mikado to be protector and advisor to 
the young Sovereign), and several Princes of the blood 
and of the nobles of the Court,, accepted my resignation 
of the governing power; but an Imperial order was 
given to me, at the same time, to continue to exercise 
that power in all things, as heretofore, until a decision 
should be arrived at by a disinterested Council of Daim- 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


99 


yo. I awaited that meeting, and was fully resolved to 
take part in it myself. 

“Unexpectedly, however, one morning, several Daim- 
yo made their way into the palace by force of' arms, 
drove out his Highness, the Regent, appointed by the last 
Mikado, together with the Princes of the blood and the 
nobles of the Court, brought in their stead nobles who 
had been banished by the late Mikado from his presence, 
altered the original Imperial command, and, without 
waiting for the general expression of opinion, abolished 
the office of Shogun. 

“My military officers were greatly incensed, and 
urged on me, day and night, that no course could be 
pursued but that of taking military measures against 
the violent crime of breaking the laws of Japan. But 
such an excess of zeal was not in accordance with the 
course I had laid down for myself. However much I 
might be in the right, I certainly would not he the cause 
of a national convulsion. In order to avoid such an 
unfortunate disturbance of peace, I came down to 
Ozaka.” 

At the time of making that address Keiki was not aware 
that the Samurai were the leaders of the attack on the 
guards, and capture of the palace. That low military retain¬ 
ers who were not even allowed to see or approach the Mikado 
could endeavor to obtain possession of the person of their 
Sovereign was never thought of. Keiki evidently thought 
that the three Daimyo who were with the rebellious Samurai 
had undertaken the affair and engaged the fighting men. The 
latter had such a bad reputation that no scheme of theirs 
would have found favor with the people who hated the bru¬ 
tal, overbearing two-sworded nobles. But Keiki was better 
informed a few days later when, in an interview with the 
English and French Representatives, he said, according to Mr. 
Adams’ report, 

“That he did not consider the Imperial Decree stat¬ 
ing that his resignation of the office of Shogun had been 


10G The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

accepted as an official document, and that he intended to 
address a protest to the Mikado, advising him that the 
government of the faction into whose hands he had 
fallen was, in fact, no government at all.* 

38. KEIKI, WILLING TO ARBITRATE, GETS INTO 
BATTLE, IS BETRAYED AND DEFEATED 

The conspirators endeavored to strengthen their position 
by getting, through promises of favors to be granted by the 
new government, the support of clans which owed allegiance 
to the Tokugawa family. They also approached Keiki with 
such an offer. Two of the Daimyo who were vassals of 
the Shogun, but had allied themselves with the Samurai party, 
came to Ozaka and offered him the position of State Coun¬ 
cilor, if he would abandon all feelings of resentment, and give 
the new government financial aid. They, also, urgently in¬ 
vited him to come back to Kioto to discuss the whole situa¬ 
tion with the men in possession of the Court; but that he 
should not come accompanied by any troops, but with only a 
small escort. 

Keiki considered the offer of holding an office under the 
low bred and criminal Samurai who were, besides, members 
of clans that were hereditary enemies of his family, as an 
insult and rejected it; but he was so hopeful that he could 
show them the lawlessness of their action, and get them to 
leave the adjustment of the necessary changes in the govern¬ 
ment to the Assembly of the Daimyo, that he consented to 
meet his enemies in Kioto. Before he departed, the Princes 
of Aidzu and Kuwana, and their chief officers, who had 
accompanied him with their troops to Ozaka, informed him 
that they would not let him go unprotected to meet the 
treacherous Samurai, but would accompany him with their 
military forces. They insisted so strongly upon his accept¬ 
ance of their protection that he finally consented. 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


101 


As soon as this became known to the Court, the Samurai 
concluded to resist, by force of arms, the coming of the 
troops. They sent word forbidding them to come, and or¬ 
dered the Satsuma and Choshiu military to block up the road 
on which they had to travel, and, if necessary, to give battle 
to them. When the Aidzu and Kuwana men proceeded to 
remove the barriers that had been placed across the road, 
they received a heavy artillery-fire, and were repulsed. The 
fighting commenced on January 28th, and was renewed on the 
next day near Yodo, whose Daimyo was a vassal of the Toku- 
gawa Shoguns. But his Samurai sided with Keiki’s enemies, 
and through their help the latter escaped a defeat. The battle 
remained undecided, and in the following night, before it was 
renewed, the Daimyo of the Tsu clan, also a vassal of the 
Shogun, who with his troops belonged to the army of Keiki, 
was bribed by the enemies to desert him. He had been placed, 
on the previous day, in a position from where he could with 
his command decide the outcome of the battle; and at the 
critical moment he helped to defeat the Shogun’s followers 
on the 3d day of the fighting. They fled to Ozaka, where 
Keiki took refuge on board of an American man-of-war from 
which he reached his own steam-corvette, “Kayomaru,” that 
brought him and his retinue to his capital, Yedo. The vic¬ 
torious troops entered Ozaka, on the 2nd of February, where 
they demolished the offices of the foreign Legations and set 
fire to the large castle belonging to the Shogun in which 
hundreds of his wounded soldiers had found refuge and were 
burnt to death. 

Japanese historians have tried, in the interest of the new 
government, to cover up the true cause of Keiki’s defeat by 
stating, he had been aware that, from a strategical stand¬ 
point, the place for the final battle had been badly chosen, 
and he had predicted to his friends that they would be de¬ 
feated. But these writers do not deny that the Yodo and 


102 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


Tsu clans betrayed Keiki, and unprejudiced judgment agrees 
with the friends of the Shogun that, after a brave fight, he 
was defeated through treachery, which shows the character 
of the men who had charge of the new government. 


39. MEN IN POWER, AS NEW RULERS, SENTENCE 
SHOGUN TO DEATH 

The men in possession of the young Mikado were now, 
at least for a while, masters of the situation, and lost no time 
in making use of the advantages gained. They declared, on 
behalf of the government, war against the “Ex-Shogun” and 
his followers, and sentenced all of them to death “for having 
rebelled against the Imperial government.” This sentence 
was published in a newly established “Government News¬ 
paper” which, being sent to the outside provinces where the 
truth was not known, caused widespread prejudice against 
Keiki and his friends. Troops were sent by the Court to the 
neighboring clans to prevent them from rising against the 
mandates of the new government and the officials it appoint¬ 
ed. Shinto missionaries were ordered by the high priest 
at the Court to travel from province to province and admon¬ 
ish the people to respect the laws to be issued by the young 
Mikado, and not to obey any rebellious Daimyo or their 
officials. The battle at Yodo was hardly won, when the 
Court sent one of its new officials to Hiogo, where the Foreign 
Representatives had commenced to establish their headquar¬ 
ters, and read and delivered to the assembled Legation officials 
a document which, as the courtier stated, bore the signature 
of the Mikado, and a state seal. Its translation read as fol¬ 
lows : 

“The Emperor of Japan announces to the Sover¬ 
eigns of all foreign nations and to their subjects that 
permission has been granted to the Shogun Yoshinobu 
(Keiki) to return the governing power in accordance with 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


103 


his own request. Henceforward we shall exercise su¬ 
preme authority, both in internal and external affairs of 
the country. Consequently the title of Emperor should 
be substituted for that of ‘Tycoon/ which has been 
hitherto employed in the treaties. Officers are being 
appointed by us to conduct foreign affairs. It is desir¬ 
able that the Representatives of all the treaty powers 
should recognize this announcement. 

“Feb. 3d, 1868. Mutsu Hito ” 


40. NEW CONSTITUTION OF 1868 MAKES EMPEROR 
SLAVE OF SHINTO CULT 

A few weeks later the Constitution which the leaders of 
the new government had formed in the meantime was also 
promulgated in the “Government Newspaper.” It contained 
eight articles, each of which created a special department of 
the administration. The first treated on the three offices 
established on the day after the capture of the palace by the 
Samurai. The Constitution legalized the creation of the 
board of Imperial Advisers, and gave them charge of the 
Mikado, as heretofore stated. The second Article made the 
Shinto Cult the state religion, and the Mikado its “Head.” 
That article settled the fate of the young Monarch. It im¬ 
posed upon him, by the supreme law of the country, the be¬ 
lief in all the superstitions of the Shinto Cult, especially in his 
own divinity, and the sacred obligation to prove his “virtue” 
by securing the prosperity of his people through the faithful 
prayers to his God-ancestors in the devotions of the wor¬ 
ship prescribed and guided by the Fujiwara high priests, and 
their assistants. 

The Constitution of 1868 thus delivered Mutsu Hito into 
the hands of his board of Advisers and the Shinto priests, 
not to become a modern Monarch, but the same helpless fig¬ 
ure head which his ancestors had been under the Fujiwara 


104 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


Kuambaku, and the Tiara, Minamoto, and Tokugawa Sho¬ 
guns. The only change made was in the personnel of the 
usurpers, low-class Samurai, the lowest branch of the military 
retainers, taking the place of their former Lords, and creat¬ 
ing in place of the Shogunate a secret Oligarchy which, as 
will be shown in the following chapter, employed in modern 
Japan the same abominable means in the treatment of their 
lawful Sovereign which had been used in ancient times, and 
for the same unlawful purpose. 


CHAPTER II. 


JAPAN’S SECRET ANTI-FOREIGN AND WAR 
POLICY 

1. THE LIFE OF MIKADO MUTSU HITO RUINED 

In the confines of the new Court the young Mikado did 
not enjoy as much liberty as his predecessors had been 
allowed. They had their own Court, in which they were 
surrounded by the members of the Imperial House, the 
high priest and his assistants, and the Kuge, the Court 
nobles, who formed the highest aristocracy of the country, 
many of them being descended from the Imperial family. In 
the new Court the Kuge were gradually replaced by attend¬ 
ants whom the board of Advisers had selected, and who 
were firm adherents of the latter. It was their duty to guard 
and watch their “divine” Sovereign at every step, lest 
some of the Shogun’s friends or other hostile person might 
secretly communicate with him, or abduct him. To prevent 
that, also armed men were watching every night in rooms 
surrounding the Imperial bed-chamber. It was thus made 
impossible for the Mikado to learn, from any other source 
but his Advisers and their employes, anything about the 
outside world and his own true position in the government. 

At the same time, while being kept in his palace like a 
prisoner, all those who came in contact with him, including 
the highest officials of the administration, treated him with 
the most deferential reverence, to render him conscious of 
his “divinity”. The ignorant youth was confirmed in this 
belief when the government leaders, in order to prove to 
the people that their young Sovereign had resumed the reigns 
of the government of Jimmu, the first Imperial Ruler of 
Japan, introduced him, on April 6th, ’68, to an Assembly of 


106 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

all the new government officials and the friendly Daimyo and 
let him take a sacred oath promising: 

“That a deliberative Assembly should be formed, 
and all measures decided by public opinion; that the un¬ 
civilized customs of former times should be abandoned, 
and the impartiality and justice displayed in the workings 
of nature adopted as a basis of action.” 

This was the first time, since centuries, that a Mikado 
had shown himself and spoken at a public concourse, and 
his appearance and promise of a popular government were 
made known to the people in the “Government Newspaper”, 
to the great satisfaction especially of the intelligent men of 
the non-aristocratic classes, who had heard and read during 
the last 15 years of the “popular” manner in which the 
Western nations were governed with the assistance of the 
common people. But the greatest impressions in favor of 
the new government were made by the constant legal an¬ 
nouncements printed in the official publication, which were 
always issued in the Mikado’s name, which tended to show 
that he was not only ruling the country spiritually, but also 
according to modern ideas and Western customs,—and by 
the journey made, under the management of his Advisers, 
to Osaka to look at several small steamers acquired by the 
government, and a small troop of soldiers. The trip was 
described officially as “His Majesty’s inspection of his war¬ 
ships and military.” 

The appearance of the young Mikado, dressed as he was 
in a uniform patterned after those used at European Royal 
Courts, and decorated with gold lacing and foreign medals,— 
riding high on horseback, on the public roads, made the sur¬ 
prised people believe that their young Ruler was, indeed, 
the real successor of his great ancestor, Jimmu the Con¬ 
queror, but also a modern Monarch. They stood, thousands 
of them, on both sides of the road and looked with awe and 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


107 


admiration upon their “divine” Sovereign. And the latter, 
seeing the multitudes of his subjects standing there with 
miens of greatest respect, waiting to get a look at him, may 
well have felt that he certainly must be a superior being to 
whom his people paid the homage due him. While both the 
people and the Imperial youth had their reasons to believe 
that a great change had been effected in the government and 
the position of the Mikado, they were, nevertheless, grossly 
deceived. 

The people did not suspect that the outward show they 
had witnessed was the only change to be made in the life 
of their Sovereign; and he did not possess intelligence enough 
to think about his condition and perceive that he was des¬ 
tined by the Samurai who had taken possession of his Court 
and his person, for the avowed purpose of restoring the 
Monarchial power to him, only to become their political 
figure-head. 

It is customary, throughout the world, even with un¬ 
civilized people, that the heir to the Throne receive some 
education tending to prepare him for the high and respon¬ 
sible position of the Ruler of a country which he is to hold. 
But nothing of the kind was done for Mutsu Hito. There 
were numerous teachers brought, soon after the establish¬ 
ment of the new government, to Japan to introduce new 
educational methods and the study of modern sciences in 
the schools of the country. But none of those learned men 
was employed to instruct the young Mikado. It is true that 
after some time he received a teacher in the English lan¬ 
guage, and later on one who was to teach him German. But 
both failed. Mutsu Hito’s inherited diseased brain was too 
weak to enable him to memorize the three or four hundred 
vocables necessary for a light conversation. It is highly 
probable that the Mikado had, long before him, lost their 
memory, and that his Advisers, knowing that he would be 


108 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


unable to memorize the multitude of Chinese ideographs 
forming the written Japanese language,—14,000 or more of 
which are needed for any publication on matters of science, 
and 2,000 to 4,000 for an ordinary book,—had concluded 
that he might be able to learn a few hundred English or 
German words and, by speaking one of these languages, 
would impress his own people and foreigners that he had 
received a modern education. This attempt to let' the boy- 
Mikado learn a foreign language has been the only thing 
done to extend the scope of his knowledge beyond that of 
his predecessors. His Advisers should also, if they had 
taken an interest in the Mikado’s health and physical and 
mental welfare, have consulted some of the many foreign 
medical men who were, at that time, called to Japan, about 
his brain disease, as was done about 20 years later for 
his son. Any physician would have prescribed for him a 
mode of living opposite to that of his ancestors of the last 
1100 years. But no effort was made by his Advisers to 
improve the Mikado’s health. 

In fact, the victorious Samurai proved, within the first 
years of their rule, that they had abolished the Shogunate, 
not to restore the ancient Monarchy to the Mikado, but to 
keep the supreme governmental power over the entire nation 
in their own hands, and do nothing for the Mikado’s benefit 
but treat him so that he would serve their interests alone. 
They therefore gave him neither teachers nor physicians. 
Instead, they gave him, a few weeks after he had passed his 
16th year of life, a wife who was 19 years old, to which 
they added, gradually, eight concubines, selected by the Advis¬ 
ers. The first children were born to him by two of these 
concubines nearly at the same time, and died the same day. 
There was no danger that, if Mutsu Hito had died, the 
direct line of descent would die out, for there were several 
lawful heirs to the Throne to be got from other members of 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


109 


the Imperial House. But Mutsu Hito was a large boy for 
his age; he promised to be a strong man when grown up, 
and might, as such, have strong will-power, which perhaps 
would render him obstinate and not as docile as his Advisers 
would want to have him. Consequently, he was led by the 
nine voluptuous women selected for him into the same life 
of unbridled lust that had made his ancestors of 70 generations 
the helpless figure-heads in whose places ambitious nobles 
were ruling the country. 

That the inexperienced, untutored, and weak-minded 
boy-Mikado who, after his stupefying daily Shinto Cult devo¬ 
tions, had no recreation or enjoyment suitable to youths of 
his age, and was unfit to study and learn, gladly sought 
entertainment in the company of his women, and succumbed 
to their seductive guiles, is too natural to need explanation. 
What did become of the Mikado when, after 25 years 
of this life of licentiousness, he was 41 years old, in 
the prime of life of the ordinary man, will be related in 
another chapter. 

Returning to the political events of the year 1868, it 
must be acknowledged that the ruling Samurai handled the 
situation with great skill, but a still higher degree of deceit¬ 
fulness—a vice which, according to the ethics of the Samu¬ 
rai, if not of the whole people, is a permissible stratagem. 
The exhibition of the Mikado as a modern Monarch greatly 
strengthened the new government, because it appealed to 
the loyalty of the people to the Imperial House. Mr. Adams 
wrote about the people’s fanatical veneration of their young 
Ruler: yj T;j 

“It is not too much to affrm that, for some time, the 
new government existed simply by the halo surrounding 
the Mikado’s sacred name, and that the Decrees of its 
officials were respected and accepted by the nation sim¬ 
ply from being issued in the name of him who was, un- 


lie 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


doubtedly, believed to be divinely descended, and was 
the object of blind veneration throughout Japan.” 


2. THE NEW GOVERNMENT CAUSES CIVIL WAR 

The whole military nobility, from the mightiest Daimyo 
down to the lowest Samurai, were strongly divided in their 
consideration of the new government. While those of the 
South and West were highly elated over the downfall of 
the Tokugawa dynasty which had its followers in the North 
and East of the country, the latter were bitterly disap¬ 
pointed. They were too well educated and experienced in 
Japanese politics to be duped like the common people. They 
knew, as well as all the rest of the nobility did, the degener¬ 
ate condition of the Mikado. They also knew that, repeat¬ 
edly, the supreme governmental power had been obtained 
by daring military men by having got possession of the per¬ 
son of the helpless Monarch. The action of the Samurai 
of the Western clans in capturing the Imperial palace and 
Mutsu Hito was, therefore, well understood by the Shogun’s 
partisans. It simply meant that the clans of the North and 
East had lost the supreme power, and would have to fight 
their ancient enemies of the South and West to regain it, 
as they had done repeatedly in the past. 

But there were some circumstances in the political situa¬ 
tion of ’68 which threatened to render the coming conflict 
extraordinarily savage. The fact that men of a low station 
in life had fought their way up to the highest positions in 
the country, had happened before, and caused no humiliation 
to those they had vanquished. But the criminal manner in 
which the Samurai of some Westerly clans had, not in open 
warfare, but in time of peace and in the sacred precincts 
of the “divine” Mikado’s residence, carried out their scheme 
to get possession of the government, was denounced by the 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 111 

best class of the military men. And more offensive yet was 
the glaring deceit which those low-bred Samurai were prac¬ 
ticing upon the whole people, of claiming to have “restored 
the ancient Monarchial power to the Sovereign,” while, in 
fact, they were making the boy-Mikado their political figure¬ 
head, in order to establish themselves and other men of their 
class in the supreme power, to the humiliation and injury 
of the whole higher military aristocracy. 

The hostile feeling thus engendered by the Samurai 
usurpers in the clans of the North was so strong that the 
latter determined to go to war at once, without even taking 
the time to prepare themselves properly for the impending 
struggle which came to be known, in the history of modern 
japan, as the ferocious civil war of ’68. 


3. KEIKI REFUSES TO ENGAGE IN THE CIVIL WAR 

In the beginning of February, ’68, the Court had noti¬ 
fied the Foreign Representatives that hostilities had broken 
out between His Majesty, the Mikado, and the “Tycoon”. 
(Keiki had, when he became Shogun, adopted the Chinese 
title of “Tycoon,” to emphasize the fact that he was really 
the Ruler of Japan, while his Japanese title, Shogun, indi¬ 
cated that he ranked below the Mikado. For this act of 
vanity Keiki has been severely reprehended by both Jap¬ 
anese and foreign writers, who did not consider that the 
Shogun was, in fact, the active head of the government in 
which the degenerate Mikados were only helpless figure¬ 
heads.) The foreign powers were requested to remain neu¬ 
tral. But the fighting was, after the battle of Yodo, in Feb¬ 
ruary, not renewed before the end of May. In the mean¬ 
time Keiki remained in his capital, Yedo, where, after 
mature consideration, he concluded not to engage in a civil 
war, and to advise his followers not to do so. He had, like 


112 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

e 

many Princes in civilized countries, never possessed a cor¬ 
rect idea about the political opinions of his own people, and 
did not learn to understand them until after he had been 
dethroned. In his case the errors made are easily explained. 

The Tokugawa offspring had, since generations, been 
taught from childhood how much their great ancestor, Iye- 
yasu, had done for Japan; and they therefore believed that 
the especially benefited common people owed that great man’s 
family a lasting debt of gratitude. But the Tokugawa 
Princes did not consider that Iyeyasu’s era, of peace and 
prosperity had begun as far back as 1600, and that prosper¬ 
ous people are prone to forget their benefactors. The Jap¬ 
anese people had thus forgot to be grateful to the Toku¬ 
gawa long before Keiki needed their good will. He learned 
to know this when it was too late; and he also saw that he 
had erred when thinking that the great masses of the popu¬ 
lation were intelligent enough to understand that the Samu¬ 
rai conspirators became not the legal representatives of the 
boy-Mikado when they took possession of him and his Court, 
and drove the legally appointed guardian and Regent away, 
but that, by this action, they had committed high treason. 
Keiki had thought that the people would rebel against a 
government established in such a criminal manner. In doing 
so he ignored the fact that one of the most potent factors 
existing in any country is tradition, and that in Japan it had 
been a standing custom, since centuries, that the person, 
whoever he might be, who had obtained possession of the 
Mikado and could, therefore, issue decrees and laws in his 
name, was considered by the people as his legal representa¬ 
tive, and, consequently, obeyed. Hence the bulk of the peo¬ 
ple turned against the ex-Shogun, and supported the new 
government. 

These facts dawned upon Keiki, when the only way to 
regain the lost supreme power that was open to him was 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


113 


to go to war. But in the few days of fighting already done 
two of his trusted vassals had deserted and betrayed him; 
and it was to be foreseen that other clans, especially those 
managed by high-class Samurai for their Daimyo, would also 
join the new government. Keiki’s supporters might thus, 
very likely, be in the minority. He furthermore considered 
that, in view of the alliance between the high priests residing 
at the Court and the Samurai conspirators, the whole Shinto 
priesthood throughout the country must be expected to 
throw, in case of a war, their influence against him. But 
what must have appeared to him as the most humiliating 
part of the situation was the certainty that, if he were to 
fight against the new government, the people who did not 
know its fraudulent character would consider him to be a 
rebel; and he was too proud of his illustrious ancestors to 
dishonor them by becoming, as the last Shogun of their 
dynasty of Princes of Peace, the head of a rebellion that 
threatened to bring nothing but defeat and disgrace to him 
and his family. 


4. LAST SHOGUN RETIRES TO A BUDDHIST 
MONASTERY 

Keiki explained all this to the leading men of his clan, 
and advised them to keep out of a civil war; but in vain. 
Many of them joined the clans of the North, who would 
not submit to any government established by any of their 
hereditary enemies of the West and South, and commenced 
the fight for the lost supremacy in the latter part of Ma>. 
When the leaders of the government heard that the ex- 
Shogun would not go to war, they made him a peace propo¬ 
sition which he accepted. He had to give up his castle at 
Yedo to a clan which had deserted his cause and joined 
the government. The latter also took some of his war-ships, 


114 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

and other property. In return he was not prosecuted for 
his alleged rebellion, but allowed to live in retirement, neither 
antagonizing nor supporting the government. He first stayed 
at Mito, then at Sumptu; later on he retired to the Budd¬ 
hist monastery at Ueno; but in 1897 he moved to Koishi- 
kawa, near Tokyo, where he was under medical treatment. 
Keiki might, herewith, be dismissed from this narrative but 
for the fact that the Japanese government and one of its 
leading statesmen have, 34 years later, used the ex-Shogun, 
when he was old and decrepit, to forge the history of Japan 
of the years ’67 and ’68, in order to hide the manner in 
which the present government has been established, and to 
cover the fraud upon which it has been based since that 
time. 


5. KEIKI IN 1902 MADE “PRINCE TOKUGAWA” 

During the next years following his retirement Keiki 
was, several times, requested by the government to accept 
a position as State Councilor, in which his experience in 
dealing with foreign nations would have been useful to 
the inexperienced Samurai Oligarchs. But Keiki declined 
to serve under the new government, and also kept away 
from the political life. He was “sulking in his tents,” ex¬ 
pecting, perhaps, at some opportune time, to regain his for¬ 
mer political power. He made no secret of his contempt for 
the Mikado, whose real position of a helpless tool in 
the hands of the priests and Samurai usurpers nobody 
knew better than the ex-Shogun, who had dealt with the 
Mikado himself. During the 34 years from 1868 to 1902 
Keiki had met the Mikado only once, to thank him for a 
letter of condolence sent the ex-Shogun, after his wife’s 
death, by the Court. According to Japanese etiquette Keiki 
would have been guilty of a disgraceful act if he had not 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


115 


thanked the Mikado personally. But when, during Keiki’s 
residence at Ueno, the Mikado visited the place, the ex- 
Shogun did not call on him, nor invite him to his residence, 
but ignored his presence. 

When, four years after the establishment of the new 
regime, the old titles of nobility were abolished and modem 
ones given in their place to the old nobles, Keiki, the off¬ 
spring of the, next to the Fujiwara, most illustrious aristo- 
ratic family of Japan, seemed to have been forgotten. For 
about 30 years he was without rank or title, like a com¬ 
mon laborer or Coolie. But in 1902 the official announce¬ 
ment appeared in the government publications that the ex- 
Shogun had been granted by the Emperor (as the Mikado 
was called since the adoption of the Constitution of 1890) the 
title “Prince Tokugawa,” placing his rank next to that of 
the Monarch. Keiki was, at that time, 65 years old, and 
had, since several years, been in bad health. He had, long 
ago, given up the political aspirations of his younger days, 
but yet had the pardonable ambition to obtain, for himself 
and his family, the rank and title due them. He accepted 
both, and paid for them the price which the Samurai govern¬ 
ment demanded. 

Before the title was granted Keiki had to give up all 
his official documents, which contained, besides other matter, 
also his proofs about the conditions of his resignation in 
1867, and the lawless manner in which the Samurai had 
obtained the supreme power. He had also to appear at the 
Court and pay his respects to the Emperor, so that the people 
could be informed, through the official newspapers, that “the 
exShogun had solicited the Imperial grace, and that it had 
been granted.” Two years later the Prince was prevailed 
upon to make a statement about his resignation as Shogun 
which was to deceive the people of Japan and the foreign 
nations about the origin of the present Japanese govern- 


116 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

ment. It has, for that purpose, been published in full in 
Count Okuma’s book, “Fifty Years of Japan”, (1909), and 
contains a complete subversion of the historical facts of the 
years ’67 and ’68, placing the responsibility for the dis¬ 
turbances of the peace at that time upon the Shogun and 
his followers, and concealing the fact that a number of 
Samurai had abolished the Shogunate in order to put their 
own Oligarchical rule in its place. 


6. COUNT OKUMA FORGES THE HISTORY OF JAPAN 
OF ’67 AND ’68 

Count Okuma relates that “Prince Tokugawa” (Keiki), 
after dwelling at length upon the great political work of 
his anestor, Iyeyasu, had stated that: 

“In October, ’67, a Samurai of the Ex-Daimyo of 
Tosa had brought him a letter from his Lord, requesting 
the Shogun to put an end to the dual form of govern¬ 
ment; that he (Keiki) had discussed the matter with the 
Samurai and, convinced by the latter’s argument, had 
told him that he were willing to resign, and, a few days 
later had presented to His Majesty, the Mikado, a memo¬ 
rial proposing the restoration to him of the administra¬ 
tive powers. But when this had become known among 
his followers in Yedo and Osaka, they had remonstrated 
against his (the Shogun’s) resignation in a riotous man¬ 
ner, so that the atmosphere became filled with a spirit of 
protest and impending bloodshed. 

“When the Shogun had persisted in his request to 
the Mikado, his Majesty would not readily listen to it. 
But the Shogun had maintained his attitude, explaining 
the urgency of the situation, and at last, the Imperial 
acceptance had been made. The Mikado, however, gra¬ 
ciously disposed as ever to the Shogun, had given him 
private instruction to continue the administration of state 
affairs, atlhough his wish to vacate the ancient power of 
a Shogun had been granted.” 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


117 


According to this story the Shogun had unconditionally 
resigned his offie, after a convincing argument with the 
Mikado who remonstrated against the resignation. It is to 
be inferred from Okuma’s story that the Mikado then pro¬ 
ceeded to organize his own government in January, ’68, for 
there is no mention made in it of the capture of the Court 
and the person of the Mikado by the Samurai of the West¬ 
ern clans. And if Keiki, after having thus resigned, had 
later on changed his mind and taken up arms against the 
Mikado, he certainly would have been guilty of rebellion. 
That is what Okuma’s writing intends to have the people of 
Japan and the foreign nations believe. But there is not a 
word of truth in those statements of Count Okuma, as can 
easily be proved. The truth is that Keiki never concluded to 
resign because persuaded by a Samurai to do so, and never 
had an argument with the Mikado about his resignation. 

Keiki was in 1867 known as the Ruler of Japan. It was 
his lawful duty to make treaties with foreign countries and 
keep law and order in the country. He was known as 
“His Highness, the Shogun,” to the people, and as a states¬ 
man of great ability and personal dignity, which even his 
enemies conceded. He was, at that time, 30 years old, had 
his own Court, and several ministers of state and councilors, 
with whom he, like any other Ruler of a country having mil¬ 
lions of inhabitants, discussed the political courses he was 
to follow. That this ruling Prince should have condescended 
to argue with a common Samurai, of an hostile clan, the 
question of his abdication as Shogun is, in view of the then, 
and even now, sharply drawn distinction of rank in Japan, 
unbelievable. And the thought that the dignified statesman 
should have had a lengthy conversation about his resigna¬ 
tion with the boy-Mikado, is absolutely senseless. He knew 
that Mutsu Hito was, at that time, not 15 years old yet, had 
no knowledge of politics and nothing to do with state affairs, 


118 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

because he was a minor and, as such, under the tutelage of 
his guardian who, being also the Regent, was the only 
official who had to attend to the Sovereign’s duties, and 
with whom the Shogun could discuss public affairs. And 
that Keiki had communication with the Regent, and not with 
the boy-Mikado, about the intended abolition of the Shogun- 
ate, is a self-evident fact that needs no proof. 

But there is documentary evidence of the very time of 
Keiki’s resignation which cannot be disputed or distorted 
by anything that any Japanese or other writer could, and 
least of all, Prince Tokugawa, would say. For, in order to 
keep the Foreign Representatives informed about the impend¬ 
ing change in the government, Keiki sent, in •November, ’67, 
a few days after having notified the Court of his intended 
resignation, through his own ministers, a statement to the 
Foreign Representatives giving the Shogun’s reasons for the 
contemplated change. Mr. Adams gives in his book an 
extract of that statement; but it was published more fully 
in 1911 in a book entitled, “The Progress of Japan from 
1853 to 1871”, the author of which, *Mr. J. H. Gubbins, 
C. M. G., has been Japanese secretary of the British Em¬ 
bassy at Japan, and lately “Lecturer in Japanese at the Uni¬ 
versity of Oxford.” Under the heading, “Statement of 
reasons for Shogun’s resignation presented by Japanese min¬ 
isters in Yedo to Foreign Representatives in November, 
1867,” the book says that “Keiki’s ministers first revised the 
political events that led, 600 years ago, to the rule of the 
Shoguns, and eulogized the work of the great Iyeyasu, the 
organizer of Japan’s administration,” and then continued: 

“The Tycoon of Japan (Keiki) has of his own free 
will decided to return to the Mikado the administrative 
authority which has been handed down to him by his 
ancestors through a period of more than 250 years. 
Fearing that at this moment of political change people’s 
minds may be led astray by false rumors and idle reports, 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


119 


we think it necessary to make the following explanation 
of the circumstances of the case to all countries. * * * 

“We confess with shame that it cannot be said that 
since foreign intercourse was established by the Tycoon’s 
Government, all its measures have been attended with 
complete success. But we can say this, that ever since 
the conclusion of treaties those who have advocated the 
closing of the country, and have been hostile to the For¬ 
eigners, have gradually been suppressed, and that the 
Government has never swerved from its fixed intention 
to carry out every clause of the treaties. * * * 

“The form of administration under which the Ty¬ 
coon has governed the country, holding a rank one decree 
below that of the Mikado, is one peculiar to Japan, which 
is the natural result of circumstances, and has lasted for 
the last 600 years. By virtue of the authority thus wield¬ 
ed, tranquility was maintained, but now that relations 
have been established with the whole world, much incon¬ 
venience is caused owing to the name under which the 
intercourse is carried on. Moreover, the fact that, at 
present, men’s minds throughout the country are in a 
state of confusion, and are not in harmony, is due chiefly 
to the same causes. Therefore our enlightened Tycoon 
making up his mind of his: own accord, has arrived at the 
momentous decision to restore the administrative author¬ 
ity to the Mikado, and convoking a Council of the heads 
of the great Houses, and inquiring fully into the present 
state of affairs, to set up a suitable government, and 
establish a political constitution which nothing in the 
future can disturb, and in this way enable the country 
to hold its own with other nations and become rich and 
strong. But it is unnecessary for us to give an assurance 
that the change will in no way effect unfavorably our 
relations with foreign countries, and that everything will 
be arranged quietly and harmoniously as before. There 
is no reason for anxiety. 

“All the provisions of the treaties concluded with 
foreign Powers have been carried out by the Tvcoon, 
and he has, thoroughly, recognized the importance of for¬ 
eign relations. The council of feudal nobles, great and 


120 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


small, zvhich is shortly to assemble, will, as soon as the 
circumstances of foreign affairs have been explained to 
them, all respect what has been done. * * *” 

The same publication contains a copy of the original 
letter of Keiki, sent on January 7, ’68, to the Imperial Court, 
explaining why he left Kioto after the capture of the palace 
and Mikado, and went to Osaka. It reads: 

“I had taken careful steps for guarding the Imperial 
palace, but now extraordinary changes have been made, 
so that I am greatly disturbed about preserving order. 
Careful instructions have been given to all officials, but I 
find it difficult to control so large a number of people, 
(an allusion evidently to the numerous bodies of clans¬ 
men who had entered Kioto). I have tried to do my duty 
to the Throne, but I fear that my efforts will be brought 
to naught by the rude actions of common fellows. 1 
have therefore decided to retire to Osaka for a short 
while. I trust that the Mikado will understand that I am 
doing this solely in the interest of the Throne, being 
anxious that order should be preserved and tranquility 
maintained in the precincts of the palace. I ought to 
have asked leave of the Throne before quitting the cap¬ 
ital, but this would have taken time, and I was afraid 
that in the interval, through some fault of those low 
rascals, a gross national crisis might be precipitated. I 
am therefore leaving for Osaka at once/’ 

A copy of the first of these two documents, issued by 
the Shogun and his ministers, was, in November, ’67, deliv¬ 
ered at every foreign Legation in Japan; the second one has 
been obtained by the before mentioned secretary of the Brit¬ 
ish Embassy, from the (c Sanjiunen Shi” a Japanese publica¬ 
tion, and translated. Any doubt about their correctness is 
therefore excluded. They prove that Count Okuma has told 
in his book a manufactured story about the actions of the 
last Shogun regarding his resignation. Keiki was not per¬ 
suaded to resign by one of the Samurai conspirators whom 
lie calls, in his letter to the Court, (e lozv rascals A He re- 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


121 


signed of his own volition, and with the understanding that 
a council of the Daimyo should determine the form of the 
new government, because the whole military class, from the 
Daimyo down to the lowest Samurai, knew that the degen¬ 
erate condition of the members of the Imperial House made 
them unfit to rule the country. 

The end of the Shogunate and the establishment of the 
present government are so closely connected that, if the truth 
were told about the former, the intrinsic fraud of the latter 
would be exposed. To hide that fraud, Okuma tells in his 
book his fictitious story about the resignation of Shogun 
Keiki. In any Western country he would brand himself 
as a base liar, because nobody knows the falsehood of his 
statements better than he, since he was one of the 42 Samurai 
who planned and carried out the criminal capture of the 
young Mikado and the supreme power. But by Japan’s 
ruling classes his falsifications are, under their “Philosophy 
of Falsehood”, considered as acts of patriotic virtue, because 
they serve to further certain policies of the Oligarchs, which 
would, without doubt, be frustrated, if the origin and pur¬ 
pose of their government were exposed. Hence every 
member of the Samurai class, and any other person con¬ 
nected with the present government, has, ever since its 
establishment in 1868, been tied down to the policy of hiding 
the truth about it. To do so is considered as one of the 
principal virtues of the modern Japanese civilization. 

7. JAPANESE GOVERNMENT FORGED, IN ’83, 
HISTORICAL EVENTS OF ’67 AND ’68. 

The climax of this political mendacity was reached by 
the government itself, when it published, in ’83, in the “Gov¬ 
ernment Newspapers,” an “Imperial Rescript” about the 
“Five articles on the behavior of the soldiers,” and as an 


122 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


introduction gave an explanation of the manner in which, in 
the past, the Monarchial power had been lost by the Mikados, 
and regained, in 1868, by Mikado Mutsu Hito. It is neces¬ 
sary to refer to these incidents and exhibit the audacious 
political falsehoods indulged in by the highest official author¬ 
ities, because in no other way could the character of the 
leaders of the government be as well depicted. A translation 
of that “Imperial Rescript”, therefore, follows herewith: 

“The army of the country, in ancient times, stood, 
from generation to generation, under the supreme com¬ 
mand of the Mikado. More than 2500 years have passed 
since the time when the Mikado Jimmu suppressed the 
barbarian tribes of the central provinces, and established 
himself upon the Imperial throne. The expedition was 
under the supreme command of the Mikado Jimmu him¬ 
self, and was composed of warriors of Otobo and Mono- 
nobe, the most illustrious warrior clans of the day. 

“Military reorganization was necessitated in subse¬ 
quent ages by the vicissitudes of the times and the needs 
of the country’s wars, but throughout our ancient history 
the Mikado was always the regular commander. His 
place in the field was sometimes taken by the Queen or 
the Crown Prince, but the supreme command of the 
army was never entrusted to any subject. 

“In the middle ages all administrative matters,, 
whether military or civil, were copied from China. But 
the long continuance of peace ruined the efficiency of the 
army; farmers and soldiers became two distinct classes. 
The warriors imperceptibly changed into a professional 
class called “Bushi” (Samurai), the principal men of 
which became the permanent leaders of the army; and 
the general chaos of the national life placed the chief 
powers of the government into their hands, and kept 
them there for close upon 700 years. 

“After the year 1848 the government of the Toku- 
gazva House became too feeble to bear the responsibili¬ 
ties of national government; and a critical period was 
made more critical by the petition for admission and 
intercourse which came from foreign nations. These 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 123 

circumstances caused great anxiety to Our grandfather 
Mikado Ninko, and Our father Mikado Komei. When 
not long afterwards We ascended the throne in Our 
youth, the Shogun Tokugawa returned his authority into 
Our hands, and the lesser Daimyo, likewise, returned to 
Us their territories. Thus in less than one year, the 
whole country came, once more, under Our direct con¬ 
trol, and We zvere thus enabled to restore again our old 
system of government. This great result was due, in 
part, to our loyal subjects of all classes zvho aided Us in 
the accomplishment of this work, and partly to the mercy 
which every Mikado of this country has felt for Our 
people. But the basis of the whole work nozv success¬ 
fully accomplished has been the fact that Our people 
themselves have a just knowledge of right and wrong, 
and apprehend the meaning of true loyalty. 

“During the fifteen years that have elapsed since 
then, We have re-organized Our military and naval sys¬ 
tems, and formed Our present army and navy, in order 
to make our country glorious. The army and navy is 
now under Our direct command, and though partial com¬ 
mands may, from time to time, be entrusted to some of 
Our subjects, the supreme command will alzvays remain 
with Us. We desire you to remember this fact, and to 
let your descendants knozv that the Mikado is the Com- 
mander-in-Chief of. the army and navy, so that the coun¬ 
try may never again go through the ignominy of the 
Middle Ages. 

“We are your Commander-in-Chief, and as such zve 
rely upon you, as upon Our hands, and zve desire you 
to look upon Us as your head, so that the relation be¬ 
tween us may be one of absolute and sincere confidence 
and trust. Stand firm in your duty, assist Us in protect¬ 
ing the country ; and the results must be prosperity of the 
nation, and the enhancement of Our country’s repu¬ 
tation.” 

This remarkable document was issued in order to secure 
to the new government the fanatical loyalty of the ignorant 
men who were, since some years, drafted annually to serve 


124 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

in the army and navy. They would have rebelled if they 
had known that an Oligarchy of the hated Samurai class 
were the rulers of the country while the Mikado was pass¬ 
ing his time in the company of the priests and his women. 
The ignorant people, therefore, had to be deceived to become 
loyal to the government, and the “Imperial Rescript” ful¬ 
filled that purpose by ignoring the historical facts regard¬ 
ing the beginning and the end of the Shogunate, and prais¬ 
ing the Mikado as the originator of the new government, 
the organizer of her new army and navy, and the master 
statesman who guided her policies. 

Twenty-two years later, when the Samurai Oligarchy 
had, through their victory over Russia, become so safe in 
the possession of their usurped power that they could boast 
of some of their achievements, Baron Kentaro Kaneko, and 
other Samurai of high rank, published the before mentioned 
book, “ Japan, Described and Illustrated by Eminent Japanese 
Authorities and Scholars” which states frankly “that the 
‘Restoration’, and the organization of the government and oj 
the army and navy, zvas the work of the Samurai of Sat- 
suma, Choshiu, Tosa and other allied clans.” 

But long before that publication appeared which told 
the truth, “The Imperial Rescript to the Soldiers”, pub¬ 
lished in 1883, had become one of the most powerful means 
of misleading the Japanese people ragarding their govern¬ 
ment and the foreign nations. Ever since that year the 
government furnishes each soldier and sailor with a copy 
of it as a part of their equipment. And it is the duty of 
the officers to impress it on every man in the service that 
his day is not properly commenced unless he has, in the 
morning, saluted the Mikado’s portrait, and read the Re¬ 
script. In this manner the whole Japanese people have, since 
the last 30 years, been systematically misinformed about 
their own government and the foreign ones. Thus there is 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


125 


no doubt in the minds of the Japanese that, after the land¬ 
ing of Commodore Perry in 1853, the United States and 
other nations have “petitioned” Japan for admission of their 
subjects and for commercial treaties. And they consider 
the action of the American government in restricting the 
Japanese immigration in the United States as an act of base 
ingratitude which many of them would like to see punished, 
if possible, through war. 

It was not an accident that the national self-conceit of 
the Japanese has thus been nourished and an antipathy 
against the white race, which was formerly only harbored by 
the military classes, artificially engendered among the com¬ 
mon people who were in the beginning of Japan’s intercourse 
with the Western nations not prejudiced against the white 
foreigners. The “Rescript to the Soldiers,” which was to be 
read every day by hundreds of thousands of Japanese, year 
after year, had been carefully prepared by the cunning Sam¬ 
urai Oligarchs to arouse those vicious passions in the whole 
nation in the furtherance of the foreign policies which they had 
formed after the civil war and kept secret with all the guiles 
of Oriental deceit, but for whose successful executions the 
government was constantly working with indefatigable zeal. 
For a full explanation of these policies it is necessary for 
this narrative to go back to the civil war of 1868. 


8. THE VICTORIOUS WAR OF THE NEW 
GOVERNMENT IN ’69 

It was at the end of May, that serious fighting was com¬ 
menced, and in November of the same year the last clans 
of the Northern confederacy which opposed the government 
made peace. The treachery of several Fudai Daimyo who 
owed allegiance to the Tokugawa family was one of the 
causes that made the government victorious; but there were 


126 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


others. The Northern clans had done no fighting since more 
than 200 years, while the Satsuma and Choshiu had, through 
their battles with the foreign men-of-war in the early sixties, 
learned enough of modern warfare to be superior soldiers 
than the old-fashioned Samurai. And when the government 
troops were provided with American breech-loading rifles* 
the Northern clans, whose men were armed with old mus¬ 
kets, were easily vanquished. A little by-play of a repub¬ 
lican character which a few of the ex-Shogun’s warships 
under the leadership of some French officers started in 
October, came to an unsuccessful end in February, ’69. The 
last Northern clan, the Aidzu, was defeated in November, 
’68; and the Foreign Representatives considered that event 
as the end of the civil war, ignoring the harmless republican 
affair. On January 5, ’69, they called at the Court and recog- 
nided the new government as the lawful Imperial govern¬ 
ment of Japan. Officially it was made known to the people, 
as has been stated before, as the “Restoration of the ancient 
Monarchy of Jimmu Tenno, the founder of the Empire.” 

9. POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT DURING THE WAR 

It was, of course, known to the foreign officials that the 
untutored boy-Mikado did, neither during nor after the war, 
rule the country, but that the Samurai and a few Court 
nobles, who had together, in January, ’68, organized the new 
government, did so in his name, through their office of 
Imperial Advisers. But the secret form of the government 
was immaterial to the Foreign Representatives. 

They dealt with the recognized ministers of the new 
Mikado’s Court, as they had done formerly with the Sho¬ 
gun’s Court officials, and made the same demands, which 
called for the granting of favorable treaties to their govern¬ 
ments, protection for all the foreigners in Japan, and human 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


127 


treatment of the natives who became Christians. In the 
beginning of the Samurai rule it appeared as if the new 
government would be hostile to all these demands. For the 
clans who had obtained the supreme governmental power 
were known as the most fanatical enemies of the white 
nations, who intended to drive all the white foreigners from 
the country, abrogate the treaties already made with the 
Western powers, and suppress Christianity, as had been done 
200 years ago, with fire and sword. On these grounds they 
had made war on the Shogun and deposed him, because 
he favored peace with the white race peoples. 

Murderous attacks upon foreigners, therefore, did not 
cease. But when, in March, ’69, the escort of the British 
Envoy, while on the way to the Court, was attacked by a 
number of Samurai, and several Englishmen more or less 
dangerously wounded, the government was compelled to pay 
heavy damages and to issue a decree forbidding, especially, 
the Samurai to assault any foreigner. This decree was, 
after long resistance by the Japanese officials, finally pro¬ 
mulgated, but attached to another announcement, which 
read: 

“The evil sect, called Christians, is strictly prohib¬ 
ited. Suspicious persons should be reported to the proper 

officers, and rewards will be given.” 

When the foreign Legations objected to that “Imperial 
ordinance,” the word “evil” was ordered to be omitted from 
it, but otherwise it remained in force, and was the cause 
that the Christian congregations were broken up, and their 
members, who numbered by the thousands, scattered to 
different parts of the country, where they were treated with 
inhuman cruelty, and some even put to death. The argu¬ 
ment made by the government in defense of its hostility 
against Christianity was dictated by the Shinto priests, and 
can shortly be expressed as follows: 


128 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


“We must prohibit Christianity. This faith is dan¬ 
gerous to the State. It incites to rebellion, and to dis¬ 
regard against the Mikado. Respect for His Majesty is 
the foundation of our country; and if we do not put this 
foreign religion down, our very existence as a govern¬ 
ment is in danger.” 

Cruelties against Japanese Christians were, consequently, 
not abandoned until some years later, when, for reasons 
hereafter to be explained, the preaching of Christianity was 
permitted. The government thus learned, within a short 
time after getting into power, that it could not carry out 
its hostile program against the foreigners. It found itself 
even compelled to feign friendship for the foreign officials. 
And its position grew, thereby, extremely difficult, for its 
leaders had got control of the government and won the civil 
war through the support of the anti-foreign element of the 
population, which embraced all the Shinto priests and a ma¬ 
jority of the military aristocracy and their military retainers, 
besides the large number of Ronins and similar freebooters 
who had left their clans to fight against the foreigners. If 
the government lost the confidence of these supporters, it 
could expect with certainty that it would not long remain 
in power. The history of Japan teaches that, in the many 
centuries of warring between the Taira and Minamoto fami¬ 
lies, the victors of today were defeated on the morrow. All 
the military nobles and the Samurai knew this; they had 
learned it in their schools when, during the Shogun rule, 
the history of Japan was truthfully taught, because there 
was at that time no secret about the existing dual form of 
government, in strong contrast to the present regime, which 
has to hide the fraud upon which it is based, and punishes, 
with tyrannical disregard of justice, those who are unfortu¬ 
nate enough to teach in their modern schools or publish in 
the newspapers any historical fact which appears indiscreet 
to the ruling powers. Two incidents of this kind which 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


129 


happened a couple of years ago will illustrate this. 

Professor Kume, who lectured at one of the univer¬ 
sities on history, was suddenly suspended because he had, in 
one of his classes, mentioned historical facts which are not 
contained in the official text-books. He was discharged, al¬ 
though not otherwise punished. The employes of a Nagasaki 
newspaper fared worse. The editor had published a com¬ 
munication the writer of which showed the influence of 
women in the Mikado’s Court under the Tokugawa Shoguns 
in the 18th century. It was a purely historical statement 
relating undisputed facts. But it was by the Imperial Advis¬ 
ers denounced as an insult to the Imperial ancestors, and 
the writer of the communication, the editor of the paper, its 
publisher, the typesetters and printers were all more or less 
severely punished. Some of them had to pay a heavy fine, 
while others were sent to jail, and some imprisoned at hard 
labor for several years. The paper was not allowed to be 
published again. Under the Shogun’s rule such acts of 
tyranny would not have happened. Under the Samurai Oli¬ 
garchy they are the order of the day. 

The defeated Daimyo of the Northern clans and their 
military retainers were, of course, fully aware that the so- 
called “Restoration of the supreme power to the Mikado” 
was a political fraud, concocted and carried out to give the 
Samurai leaders of the Western clans the power formerly 
held by the Shoguns. It was therefore, to be foreseen that 
the defeated clans would, at the first opportunity offering 
itself, renew the battle for the supremacy, and utilize in the 
coming fight the dissatisfaction of the original supporters of 
the ruling faction. There thus stood between the Samurai 
Oligarchs and their future peaceful possession of the power 
behind the Throne, the threatening spectre of the 1000-year- 
old hatred of their defeated enemies of the North, whose 
insatiable ambition and indomitable war-spirit would urge 


130 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


them on to ever renewed fighting until they were victorious*. 
That with such an enemy home, ready at any time to 
attack the partisans of the government, the latter could not 
expect ever to be able to carry out their publicly expressed 
policy of driving the “white barbarians” from Japan, and 
abolishing the treaties made by the Shoguns with them, 
could easily be seen. They became convinced that only some 
great political scheme would help them out of their per¬ 
plexing situation; and the conspirators who had successfully 
deposed the Shogun and captured the government were 
equal to the difficult occasion. They found a solution of the 
problem which, for cunning, deceitfulness, and far-seeing, 
but treacherous, statemanship, has never been equaled by 
any political scheme of historical times. 


10. RADICAL CHANGE IN DOMESTIC POLITICS AFTER 
THE CIVIL WAR 

Within a few months from the recognition of the new 
government by the Foreign Representatives, a complete change 
took place in the domestic policies of the country. Contrary 
to the ancient custom, employed in all the civil wars, of 
the victors taking the territory of their defeated enemies, 
the Daimyo of the Satsuma, Choshiu, Tosa, and Hizen clans, 
to which the majority of the leaders of the government 
belonged, offered a list of all their territorial possessions 
and of the numbers of their retainers, to the Mikado, and 
petitioned that a new division of all the land that was fit 
for agriculture be made between all the clans. After a short 
agitation among the different Daimyo and other leaders of 
the clans, 260 out of 277 Territorial Princes signed the 
petition, which was promptly granted by the Court. That 
extraordinary action was followed by another even more 
important one. The Daimyo completed the work of strength- 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


131 


ening the Ruling Powers by giving up their own almost 
independent political position of Feudal Lords, and accepted 
the office of Governors under the federal administration. 
This act of patriotism was followed by the abolition of the 
title of Daimyo, which was replaced by that of “Kazoku” 
(noble family). Later on the European titles, Prince, Mar¬ 
quis, Viscount, Count and Baron were given to the members 
of the military and Court nobility, according to the influ¬ 
ence the different nobles possessed with the government. 

Since the defeated Daimyo had, by these voluntary con¬ 
cessions, stripped themselves of all their former military and 
political power, it is evident that they and their followers 
must have abandoned the ambition and hope of ever regain¬ 
ing the national supremacy, and that, by making peace with 
their hereditary enemies with whom they had warred since 
the 9th century, they had also given up their hatred against 
them, which had, during that long period of time, been the 
prevailing passion of every member of their clans, from 
the princely Daimyo down to the lowest military retainer. 
As this sudden change of mind of the Northerly clans secured 
their victorious enemies in the possession of the supreme 
power, probably for many years to come, it follows that 
these clans must have been recompensed in some mannei 
for giving up their revenge, their hatred, their ambition, and 
their almost indomitable greed for power. In a country like 
Japan, where these vicious passions are esteemed as some 
of the highest manly virtues, no other conclusion is possible 
than that by some secret political scheme the, until lately 
hostile, factions had come to an understanding which would 
greatly benefit both of them. 


132 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


11. SUDDEN FRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF LEADING 
SAMURAI TO FOREIGNERS 

It has been stated before that the foreign nations had 
no more fanatical enemies in Japan than the two-sworded 
retainers of the Satsuma, Choshiu and Tosa clans. From 
the very time of Commodore Perry’s first landing they had 
commenced to agitate against the “white barbarians”, and 
most of the murders and other deeds of violence committed 
against foreigners could be traced to these clans. It was, 
therefore, expected by all classes of the people, after the 
leading Samurai of those clans had got complete control of 
the government, through the support of the anti-foreign ele¬ 
ment of the whole country, in a hard-fought civil war, that 
another war would follow in which all the white foreigners 
and their ships would be driven from Japan and the Japanese 
waters. But, to the astonishment of everybody, the reverse 
occurred. A few weeks after the recognition of the govern¬ 
ment by the foreign nations, the cool politeness with which 
the Court officials had, during the war, treated the members 
of the Legations, suddenly changed into an attitude of warm 
friendliness. 

The Samurai Oligarchs, who formerly had agitated 
against the Shogun because he seemed to befriend the for¬ 
eigners, suddenly indulged in assurances of their friendly 
feelings for the nations of North America and Europe. The 
same Court nobles and Shinto priests who, for years, had 
persisted in their demand that the Shoguns should drive out 
the “white barbarians”, now notified the Foreign Representa¬ 
tives that the Court were desirous for more intimate rela¬ 
tions with the nations of the Western civilization. And, in 
fact, all the officials connected with the government which, 
only a year ago, was founded upon the program of hostility 
against everybody and everything foreign, appeared sud¬ 
denly to be filled with respect and friendship for the for- 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


133 


eigners. No cause for this sudden change from fierce hat¬ 
red to warm friendship on the part of the ruling classes 
toward the foreigners was given to anybody. But it was 
noticeable that it appeared simultaneously with the before 
mentioned reconciliation of the two great factions of the 
military nobility; an indication that there might have been 
a common cause for both those extraordinary changes which 
wiped out, at the same time, the hatred of the followers of 
the White and Red Banners against each other, and the 
savage hostility of the whole military class against the for¬ 
eigners; both of which antagonistic feelings had, since cen¬ 
turies, been nurtured as patriotic virtues. 


12. HISTORIANS CAN NOT EXPLAIN GREAT 
CHANGE OF 1869. 

No historian, native or foreign, has given any lucid 
explanation of that great political phenomenon, although 
they admit that a great change had come over the leading 
classes of the Japanese people after the end of the civil 
war of ’69. Mr. Adams, who, at that time, resided in Japan, 
wrote, before specifying the effects of “the great change”, 
“We now come to what appears the most surprising 
change ever effected in so short a time.” 

Later on, in commenting on the action of the Daimyo in 
giving up their land and their retainers to the government, 
Mr. Adams wrote: 

“If it is not clear to the reader why this change was 
effected without any serious opposition on the part of the 
Daimyo, I can only record my ‘opinion’ that it was, 
because these nobles were puppets in the hands of their 
clansmen, that they were ignorant of affairs, and did not 
comprehend the nature of the change.” 

There is no doubt that this was partly true. Many clans 
were managed by high class Samurai or other retainers of 


134 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


the Daimyo. And in the others where that was not the 
case, the influence of the Samurai who still had, figuratively 
speaking, “their war paint on”, from the just fought-out 
civil war, was powerful enough to swing their Princes 
politically into line with the other clans. But that is no 
explanation why the Samurai of the formerly hostile clans 
who hated each other worse than the Daimyo did, had sud¬ 
denly become friends and forgot and forgave their deadly 
enmity of a thousand years duration. Nor does it explain 
why the Samurai who had, for nearly 300 years, helped to 
exile the white peoples from Japan anfl, during the last 15 
years, considered the murdering of foreigners as a patriotic 
deed and duty, had at once become their friends and admir¬ 
ers. And least of all does Mr. Adams’ “opinion” explain 
why the Samurai, the professional soldiers who had helped 
to put down the Shogun, in order to make an end of the 
peace-era established by his ancestors, should suddenly 
endeavor to establish another peace-era promising to become 
more lasting yet, and not only between the hostile domestic 
factions, but also with the foreigners, for whose expulsion 
from Japan the late civil war had been waged. 

Count Okuma has mentioned in his book the sudden 
metamorphosis in the conduct of the Court, the government 
officials, and the members of the nobility, as follows: 

“The great changes were a series of events for which 

we find no parallel in the history, either of Japan or of 

the world.” 

Exaggerated as that statement sounds, it is neverthe¬ 
less true. Okuma, as a former Samurai, knew that the 
change of mind of the nobility and of the conduct of the 
Court and the government leaders was, from the Japanese 
standpoint, marvelous. He also tried to explain it, stating 
that 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


135 


“Since the bombardment of Shimonoseki and Kago¬ 
shima by the foreign fleets, the leading men of Satsuma, 
and Choshiu had been converted into ardent advocates 
of the opening of the country to the foreign nations and 
introducing the Western civilization, and had, when they 
were in control of the government, enacted the great 
change.” 

That statement Okuma has made in his role as one of 
the political actors in ’68, who has helped to produce the 
marvelous change and is, personally and politically, inter¬ 
ested in hiding the great secret which envelops it. The his¬ 
tory of Japan as recorded in the Legation offices of every 
foreign nation represented in Japan during the years from 
’60 to ’68, proves that every word of Okuma’s {( explana- 
tion” is false. The two clans he names, which were pun¬ 
ished for firing upon foreign ships and murderous attacks 
made upon some foreigners, did not become friendly to the 
white people after said punishment, but remained as hostile 
as ever, antogonized most bitterly the Shogun because of his 
friendly attitude to the foreign nations, and in ’68 conspired 
successfully to capture the Court, and obtain the supreme 
governmental power for the avowed purpose of driving 
the foreigners and their warships from Japanese soil and 
waters. That is uncontrovertible Japanese history, which 
nobody knows better than Okuma. 


13. JAPAN’S SECRET ANTI-FOREIGN POLICY 

But however much he and his brother conspirators ot 
1868 may wish to hide the truth about the secret of the 
“great change” of ’69, as it is called by Japanese historians, 
the truth will out. And it is a Japanese publication that 
furnishes the key to the solution of the mystery. It did so 
unwillingly, and 15 years ahead of the time when the 
“change” really happened; but it tells the truth, neverthe- 


136 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


less. The (f Genji Yume Monogatari”, a record of historical 
occurrences from 1850 to ’64, contains a report about an 
important discussion that took place in 1854 between the 
highest officials of the boy-Shogun, Iyesada, and his near 
relative, the Prince of Mito, regarding the treaty which 
Commodore Perry requested the Shogun to sign on behalf 
of Japan. The report of the discussion has been trans¬ 
lated by Mr. Ernest Satow (later known as Sir Ernest 
- Mason), who was, in the sixties, Japanese secretary and 
interpreter of the British Legation. His translation was 
published in the first English newspaper printed in Japan 
and also by Mr. Adams, the British Charge d’Affairs, in 
his before mentioned book. In these publications the Prince 
of Mito, who was strongly opposed to the admission of the 
foreigners in Japan, and objected to making any treaty with 
them, is quoted as having argued as follows in favor of 
his views: 

“At first these foreigners will give us philosophical 
instruments, machinery, and other curiosities which will 
take other ignorant people in. And trade being their 
chief object, they will manage, bit by bit, to impoverish 
the country; after which they will treat us just as they 
like, perhaps behave with the greatest rudeness, and in¬ 
sult us, and end by swallowing Japan. If we do not 
drive them away now, we shall never have another op¬ 
portunity.” 

To this argument, the report says, the Shogun’s officials 
objected, and proposed the following policy for the treat¬ 
ment of the white foreigners: 

“If we try to drive them away, they will, immedi¬ 
ately, commence hostilities, and thus, we shall be obliged 
to fight. If we once get into a dispute, we shall have an 
enemy to fight, who will not be easily disposed of. He 
will come with several myriads of men-of-war, and sur¬ 
round our shores completely; he will capture our junks, 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


13 7 


and blockade our ports, and deprive us of all hope of 
protecting our coasts. 

“Even supposing that our troops were animated by 
patriotic zeal in the commencement of the war; after 
they had been fighting for several years, their patriotic 
zeal would naturally become relaxed. For, in our own 
wars, soldiers who have distinguished themselves are re¬ 
warded by grants of land; or if we attack and seize 
foreign territory, it becomes our property, and we can 
reward the soldiers with it, so that every man is encour¬ 
aged to fight his best. 

“But in this war with the foreign nations who will 
attack us in our own country, a soldier may undergo 
hardships for years, may fight as if his life were worth 
nothing, and as all the land in the country has already 
owners, there will be none to give away as rewards. So 
we shall have to give rewards in money, by which the 
country would be put to an immense expense, and the 
people plunged into misery. 

“Rather than allow this, as we are not the equals of 
the foreigners in the mechanical arts, let us have inter¬ 
course with foreign countries, learn their drill and tac¬ 
tics, and when zue shall have made the nation as united as 
one family, we shall be able to go abroad and make war, 
and conquer lands in foreign countries that we can give 
to those zvho distinguish themselves in battle. The sol¬ 
diers will then vie zvith one another in displaying their 
intrepidity, and it zvill not be too late then to declare war 
against the foreigners. 

“But now we shall have to defend ourselves against 
these foreign enemies skilled in the use of mechanical 
appliances with our soldiers whose military skill has, 
considerably, diminished during a long peace of 300 years, 
and we, certainly, could not feel sure of victory, espe¬ 
cially in a naval war.” 

14. SAMURAI DECEITFUL ENOUGH TO ADOPT SUCH 
A POLICY 

To a person belonging to any civilized white race people 
this proposition must appear as the plot of a disordered 


138 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


brain; for the Western civilization is based upon truthful¬ 
ness, sincerity, and honesty between nations as well as indi¬ 
viduals. And the idea that the most intelligent classes of a 
people, including the heads of the government and its rep¬ 
resentatives at home and at the foreign Courts could, for 
years, carry out such a policy of hypocrisy, falsehood and 
treachery in order, in the end, to make war upon their un¬ 
suspecting and, therefore, unprepared friends and neigh¬ 
bors, and conquer their territorial possessions—that idea 
looks, to civilized people in this moden age, so unnatural 
and impossible as to be unbelievable. But it did not appeal 
so to the Japanese. For Mr. Adams added to the above 
quotation the following remark: 

“This proposition is significant of the opinions 
which had been held, at that time, by many Japanese, 
as to the course to be pursued by the government in re¬ 
gard to the foreigners. 

The reason why foreign writers about Japan have 
never suspected that this anti-foreign policy proposed in 
1854 has been adopted in 1869, is to be found in their ignor¬ 
ance regarding the character of the members of the old mili¬ 
tary classes and their modern offspring, the predominating 
traits of which were, and are yet, savage disregard of human 
life, treachery and deceitfulness, and fanatical hatred of the 
white race. And, having no religion which condemns these 
atrocious vices, nor teaches them to practice fair dealing 
with their fellow-men, they did not hesitate to adopt the 
treacherous anti-foreign policy which, in 1854, the honorable 
Tokugawa Prince, although himself a foreign hater, had 
indignantly rejected. 

Forty-six years have passed since, in 1869, that policy 
has been adopted, and the men who planned the scheme are, 
partly, in the highest political offices in Japan, and partly 
dead. It will, therefore, be denied in their country that the 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


139 


so-called “Restoration statesmen” were men of the charac¬ 
ter herein described, and who could be suspected of having 
concocted such a plot against the white race nations and the 
peace of the world. But there is proof that these men be¬ 
longed to the most vicious type of the low-class Samurai, 
and were fit to commit any crime against white people; and 
the proof is furnished in public print by authors calling 
themselves “Eminent Japanese Authorities and Scholars ”, 
who are all more or less closely connected with the govern¬ 
ment. But as that secret policy was not the scheme of a 
few leading men, but adopted by all the old military 
classes, principally the Samurai, it may be appropriate to 
show first how the character of the latter has developed it¬ 
self in modern Japan. They have a friend in Capt. Brinck- 
ley, the journalist and literary protege of the Samurai Oli¬ 
garchy, who is above the suspicion of misrepresenting them. 
His book, “Japan,” contains the following description of the 
“Philosophy of Falsehood” prevailing in Japan, which is, in 
fact, a general picture of the character of the Samurai of 
today: 

“The history of humanity shows that moral prin¬ 
ciples have never been allowed to interfere greatly with 
the consummation of ambitious designs. No contradic¬ 
tion of that experience is to be found in the story of the 
Samurai. If loyalty and fidelity were conspicuously dis¬ 
played by him in a subordinate position, he sometimes 
violated both, without hesitation, for the sake of grasping 
power or climbing to social eminence. When Ashikaja 
Takauji, one of the principal Kamakura generals, was 
about to march from Kamakura to Kioto at a crisis in 
the history of the Ho jo’s supremacy, suspicions were cast 
upon his loyalty, and the Hojo Vice-Regent asked him to 
sign an oath of fidelity. He did so without hesitation, 
and a few days later accepted the Emperor’s Commission 
to destroy the Hojo Vice-Regent. It would not be easy 
to find many instances of treachery following so close 


140 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


on the heels of asseveration of loyalty; but there are 
almost innumerable examples of men plotting against 
those to whom they owed the foundations of their for¬ 
tune, of betraying those that trusted them. 

“The expedients resorted to by combatants and polit¬ 
ical rivals during the Military Epoch evinced a liberal 
rendering of the principle that everything is fair in war. 
Oda Nobunaga (one of Japan’s greatest soldiers) did 
not hesitate to forge documents containing false accusa¬ 
tions against men whom he wished to destroy. 

“In the military instructions the Samurai adopted 
from the Chinese, it is laid down that the spy is the high¬ 
est product of skilled strategy, and five varieties are 
minutely described, the greatest “Expert” being he that, 
simulating disaffection to the master he really serves, 
wins the confidence of the enemy, and, living in their 
midst, deceives them into adopting a suicidal course. 

“Industrial veracity never existed in Japan. Polit¬ 
ical veracity remained similarly undeveloped. There was, 
in fact, nothing to educate the spirit of fair play which is 
the unavoidable companion of a love of truth. Accord¬ 
ing to the view entertained by the Samurai in the Mili¬ 
tary Epoch and still prevalent throughout the Japanese 
nation, the obligation to reveal facts in their nakedness, 
is relative. Truth is not set upon a pedestal above the 
sorrows and sufferings of existence or even above the 
cares and worries of daily life. That is the “Philosophy 
of Falsehood” in Japan today, as it was in the Military 
Epoch. It may be broadly stated that moral principles 
received no respect whatever from framers of political 
plots or planners of ‘ruses-de-guerre.’ ” 

The author of that writing has done his best to 
smooth off as much as was possible, by the use of pretty 
phrases, his description of the Samurai character. But, con¬ 
sidering that he lives since 40 years in Japan, has a Japan¬ 
ese wife, and enjoys the support of the Samurai govern¬ 
ment for his newspaper, he exhibits a praiseworthy courage 
in publishing such a criticism. For this courageous act 
puts upon his writing the stamp of undeniable truth. Re- 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


141 


garding the special character of the Samurai who established 
the new government, it is necessary to go back to the period 
of lawlessness in the early sixties, and relate the details of 
two of the most savage acts of violence committed at that 
time by Samurai. As the victims in both cases were British 
subjects, the story of the outrages has been told by Mr. 
Adams from the Legation records, of which the following 
is a short extract: 

“In September ’62, a party of English merchants 
who visited Japan on their way home from China, rode 
on horseback, from Kanagawa towards the town of 
Kawasaki, on the “Tokaido” (state-road), within the 
limits in which, according to the treaties with the for¬ 
eign nations, foreigners had a right to travel. The party 
was composed of three gentlemen, Messrs. Richardson, 
Clarke, and Marshall, and the latter’s sister-in-law, Mrs. 
Borrodaile. After riding some four miles, they met 
about a hundred Japanese, the military retainers of the 
father of the Daimyo of Satsuma, whom they escorted, 
marching in single file on either side of the road. 

“The English kept well on the outside, and walked 
their horses. When they had got as far as the main 
body of the procession, a man stepped in front of Mr. 
Richardson and Mrs. Borrodaile, who rode in front of 
the others, and barred the way. Mr. Marshall exclaimed 
to his friends, and barred the way. Mr. Marshall ex¬ 
claimed to his friends: ‘Don’t go ahead; we can turn 
into a side road!’ Whereupon they turned round, and 
proceeded to ride back. But at that moment one of the 
Samurai threw off his upper clothing, and attacked Mr. 
Richardson, striking him with the sword. At the same 
time, others assailed not only Clarke and Marshall, but 
also the lady, and even struck one of the horses. But, 
spurring their mounts, the four English people got away, 
riding as fast as they could, back in the direction from 
which they had come. Suddenly Mr. Richardson uttered 
a cry and fell off his horse. When his companions saw 
that the bowels were protruding from his body through 
the cut inflicted by the sword, and that he was motion- 


142 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


less, they thought he was dead; and as both the othei 
men were also badly cut, and the lady half dead from 
fright, all three rode on to the next town, where the 
wounded men were taken care of by the American Con¬ 
sul, while the woman went on to Yokohama, where 
English officials comforted her. Luckily the cut aimed 
at her had missed her head, only tearing her hat. 

“The men sent out by the Legation to find and bring 
in Mr. Richardson’s body, failed to get him, but, a couple 
of weeks later, found a woman who had seen Mr. Rich¬ 
ardson fall from the horse and approached the body after 
his friends had left him. She found the wounded man 
alive, and he asked, so she testified, for a drink of water 
which she refused to give him, because she was afraid 
of the retainers of the Daiymo whom she saw approach¬ 
ing. One of them cut Mr. Richardson's hand off, which 
he had raised; then other Samurai hacked him to pieces, 
finally cut his throat and threw him on the field near the 
road. There the body was found covered with a couple 
of small mats, and revealing a most ghastly and horrid 
spectacle.” 

The British Legation demanded from the Daimyo of 
Satsuma the immediate arrest and execution of the murder¬ 
ers, who were, of course, well known. But pretending that 
the guilty men were not known, the Daimyo refused to com¬ 
ply with the demand. Consequently the British bombarded, 
11 months after the crime had been committed, the capital 
of the clan, killing and wounding a number of inhabitants, 
which could have been avoided, if the murderers had deliv¬ 
ered themselves to the Japanese Authorities. But, under the 
prevailing prejudices of the Samurai, they had done a patri¬ 
otic deed in murdering a “white barbarian and intruder,” and 
were protected by the members of the military class, so that 
the Daimyo submitted to have his town destroyed, some 
innocent people killed, and, besides, paid 200,000 yen ($100,- 
000) damages. That was Japanese civilization in 1863! 

The other savage deed of violence happened in January, 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


143 


’63. It was an act in three parts. In July, ’61, a night at¬ 
tack had been made upon the members of the -British Lega¬ 
tion, in their offices, by 14 Samurai. They succeeded in enter¬ 
ing the building and seriously wounding several of the offi¬ 
cials. Another similar attack was made in July, ’62, in 
which a couple of British marines were cut to pieces. In 
January, ’63, the murderers and incendiaries were successful. 
Ten armed Japanese tried to enter the Legation buildings 
erected at Gotenyama. Not being admitted, they cut down 
the British guards, and by trains of powder and other com¬ 
bustibles, which they had laid around the buildings, an explo¬ 
sion was caused which destroyed the offices and burnt what 
was left of them. It was well known that Samurai had 
done the deed, but they were not detected. There was 
general satisfaction among the military retainers over the 
final success in destroying the buildings, and over the mur¬ 
dering of the guards, and everything done to protect the 
treacherous criminals. Mr. Adams adds to his report of the 
atrocious deed: 

“The incendiaries were not taken, but some of them, 
at least, are known to have been Choshiu men, and two, 
if I am rightly informed, subsequently held high and 
influential positions in the Imperial government after its 
“Restoration,” in 1868, and have long been distinguished 
for their friendly ( ?) feelings for the ‘foreign barbar¬ 
ians.’ One of them who is still (in 1870) in office, has 
sat at my table in Yedo, and I have, more than once, 
felt a longing to inquire into the details of his incendiary 
exploit; but it is too soon to expect such disclosures 
from natives. I well remember one of the most influen¬ 
tial members of the Satsuma clan, now dead, being asked 
by one of us, in the Secretary’s house at Yokohama— 
some time having elapsed since the murder of Mr. Rich¬ 
ardson—who really cut Mr. Richardson down. The Jap¬ 
anese gentleman, who must have known, as he was in 
the Daimyo’s train at the time of the murder, simply 


144 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

answered, as might have been expected: ‘I have for¬ 
gotten.’ ” 

15. MURDERERS AND INCENDIARIES AMONG THE 
RESTORATION STATESMEN 

Mr. Adams was correct. There were murderers and 
incendiaries among the Samurai who had established the 
new government; but it took nearly 40 years before the 
truth came out, being published by prominent members of 
the new nobility, in their book, “Japan.” It was, in the spell 
of boastfulness, after the first great victories of the Japanese 
over the Russians, that the before mentioned book, “Japan 
by the Japanese” was published, and also “Japan, described 
and illustrated by Eminent Japanese Authorities.” Both 
literary works were written for the purpose of telling the 
outside world what Japan’s government wanted it to know 
about the new Asiatic world power. In the first one it was, 
in the preface, announced that the Japanese were the most 
superior race, and that great achievements were yet to come 
forth from them. In the second work the foreign nations 
were informed who the men are that have made modern 
Japan what she is. The authors, Baron Kentaro Kaneko, 
and other prominent men of the Samurai nobility tell, with 
evident pride, that the “Restoration statesmen” who estab¬ 
lished the new government were originally low-class Samurai, 
and relate, besides, the following incidents out of their early 
lives: 


“The new titles, Marquis, Count, Viscount, and oth¬ 
ers must not be taken as evidence that the makers of 
Japan’s modern history belonged to the ancient nobility 
of Japan. Thus Marquis Ito was plain Mr. Ito when he 
first appeared on the political stage; and the same is true 
of Okuma, Inouye, Itagaki, Kido, Saijo, and so on, in 
short nearly the whole group of brilliant politicians who 
led Japan from the old to the new, and steered her 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


145 


through all her subsequent difficulties. Many of them can 
look back to strange and stirring experiences in the days 
when, as feudal retainers, with no foundation of fortune 
building, except high courage, and mere intelligence, they 
laid plans that must have seemed at the moment idle 
dreams, but were destined to raise the country to an 
unlooked for place among the nations, and the enduring 
height of influence and power such as the most ambitious 
fancies can not have pictured. 

“Count Inouye, who holds the portfolio of finance at 
the time when these pages were written, remembers how, 
one winter’s night, 35 years ago, he and a little hand of 
*patriots’ applied the torch to the new buildings erected 
for the British Legation at Tokio; and burnt them to the 
ground. Marquis Sayo has not forgotten the fight he and 
his comrades waged, 36 years ago, in the upper story of 
an inn when they had to choose between death and the 
abandonment of their anti-foreign crusades. Baron Mar - 
ioka, who died recently, after having occupied many 
important political posts, was one of the two Samurai 
who slashed at three foreigners on the Tokaido, in 1862 , 
killing one and wounding the others, which led to the 
bombardment of Kagoshima, by a British squadron. Such 
records are numberless.” 

These reminescences of prominent Japanese Authorities, 
and the accompanying statement that “such records are num¬ 
berless,” clearly demonstrate what type of men the Samurai 
were who, in 1868, captured the Mikado’s palace and estab¬ 
lished the new governments. They exhibited, at that time, 
in their monstrous hatred of the white race people a savage 
cruelty in their murderous debaucheries and incendiarism, 
which was worse than cannibalism. They committed a hein¬ 
ous crime when they put their lawful young Sovereign into 
the hands of scheming priests and voluptuous women, thereby 
making him their half-idiotic, political tool, instead of treat¬ 
ing him as their Monarch. And they perpetrated a fraud 
upon the whole non-aristocratic people of Japan, when they 


146 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


made themselves the Rulers of the country under the pre¬ 
text of having restored the Monarchical power to their “di¬ 
vine” Mikado. These acts of the “Restoration statesmen” 
—the fraudulent designation they have given themselves— 
prove that they are men who would not shrink back from 
any political plot, however criminal it might be, which prom¬ 
ised to satisfy their greed for power, ambition, and private 
interest. 

Regarding the latter—their financial operations—a few 
statistical facts may be added which contribute to the com¬ 
pletion of this character sketch. In 1912 a prominent Jap¬ 
anese newspaper, of Ozaka, published a list of “the country’s 
millionaires.” There were then no less than 501 persons in 
Japan who possessed each more than one million yen ($500,- 
000). In Tokio there were 154, twenty-one of whom have 
more than 20 millions yen, each. And the overwhelming 
majority of these millionaires are former low-class Samurai 
who took part in the change of the government in ’ 68 , and 
whose sole possession, at that time, was a couple suits of 
clothes, and the right to draw from the Daimyo they served 
a daily allowance of rice, and from 55 to 70 cents a month 
in money, per man. But since then they have become 
Princes, Counts, and Barons of the new aristocracy, and 
leading government officials, and, as such, squeezed honestly 
or otherwise, 1000 millions of yen (500 million dollars) out 
of their poverty stricken people. 

Had these power-greedy, cruel, and fanatic foreign 
haters, as “Restoration statesmen,” in course of time become 
civilized through their constant contact with the white race 
Representatives, and through their own higher positions? 
Did they regret their former criminal viciousness, and bury 
their shame in oblivion? Not at all! To the contrary, as 
soon as they had, in 1904, become certain that they would 
be victorious in the war with Russia, the greatest military 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


147 


power of Europe, they showed their old characteristics. 
Defiant and overbearing, they jaunted the names of their 
Counts and Barons who, as young Samurai, had been guilty 
of the most inhuman deeds of violence against law-abiding 
white people, in public print, before the eyes of the nations 
to which the victims of Samurai savagery had belonged. For 
Japan was now, conscious of her strength, no more afraid 
of the foreign powers, but showed them that she considered 
herself their equal, made so “by having had intercourse with 
the foreign countries, and learned their drill and tactics” 
according to the secret anti-foreign and war policy which had 
been carried out, since 1869, so thoroughly, as proposed in 
1854, that every page of the history of modern Japan bears 
witness to its existence. 

16. SECRET POLICY CONSIDERED AS AN ACT OF 
JAPANESE PATRIOTISM 

Returning with this narrative to the year ’69, it cannot 
be doubted, that the government leaders considered, in their 
unscrupulous national selfishness, the adoption of the secret 
policy as a patriotic deed. It promised to benefit not only 
themselves, but the whole nation. They calculated that the 
vista it opened up to the military classes of a series of 
wars against the hated “white barbarians” who had “inso¬ 
lently” forced their undesired presence, trade and treaties 
upon the weaker Japanese people, would serve to eradicate 
the lesser hatred between the two great national factions, 
preventing the recurrence of the civil wars which had so 
often devastated the country, and “uniting the whole nation 
into one family” as advised by the policy. 

It was also to be expected that, by feigning friendship 
for the foreign nations, the Japanese would obtain from 
them, during a few decades, knowledge of the inventions and 


148 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

discoveries in every department of modern civilized life, 
which the white race people of America and Europe had 
made during the last two or three centuries. It was further¬ 
more believed that, if the Japanese people who, through the 
Shinto superstitions, had been imbued with a fanatical fight¬ 
ing spirit, were instructed in the sciences of modern military 
and naval warfare, their armies and navies would become 
invincible and vanquish the white race nations whose terri¬ 
tory they wanted to conquer. The new possessions would 
give the Japanese people new fields for their trade and com¬ 
merce; liberal portions of the acquired land would be dis¬ 
tributed among the fast increasing aristocratic families, and 
distinguished military and naval officers. The over-popula¬ 
tion of Japan would find homes in the new provinces, and 
the income from the exploitation of their natural resources 
and treasures furnish the government with the means to con¬ 
tinue and increase its preparations for other wars. 

That in accomplishing these great feats the life blood of 
millions of the young men of their people would have to flow 
in streams, was not an obstacle to the new policy in a coun¬ 
try where, since more than 2000 years, the people had been 
taught by the Shinto priests to believe that they had a divine 
Ruler to whom they owed all their earthly possessions, even 
their lives, and for whom they must give up both, whenever 
he or his government officials demanded it. Mr. Alfred Stead 
stated in his book “Japan Today” (1902) nothing but a truth 
which no Japanese will deny, when he said: 

“The living thread that has bound together in clos¬ 
est union the whole national policy of Japan is to be 
found in the earnest, thinking, and eminently practical 
patriotism of the people of Japan. Ask a Japanese if he 
would be prepared to sacrifice his life and his career for 
his country’s good, and without hesitation he will answer 
in the affirmative. It does not need consideration, it is 
instinctive; for patriotism is part of their life, not as with 
white race people, a thing apart.” 



The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


149 


17. THE GOVERNMENT INVITED FOREIGNERS TO 
COME TO JAPAN 

The ruling Samurai had to suppress their hatred of the 
foreigners to carry out their new policy; and their inborn 
deceitfulness made it easy for them to do so. They had, 
already, shown a friendly attitude towards the Foreign Rep¬ 
resentatives, soon after the end of the civil war; although 
they had got into power for the avowed purpose of expelling 
the foreigners. There was a very good reason for their 
change of heart before they had adopted the new policy. 
The powerful fleets of men-of-war lying in the Japanese 
harbors, and the thousands of marines and sailors who stood 
ready to protect their American and European countrymen 
against any Japanese assaults, had prevented the government 
from engaging in any hostilities which would certainly have 
been disastrous to the natives. 

But after having accepted the new policy, the govern¬ 
ment officials assumed an air of warm friendship for the 
Foreign Representatives, and declared that they wished to 
modernize their people and country after the example set by 
the Western nations, and for that purpose desired the friend¬ 
ship of the latter, so that Japanese might go to Europe and 
America to learn, and foreigners come to Japan to teach her 
people how to get modernized. The Western nations, who 
had no doubt but that Japan desired to adopt the Western 
civilization, opened wide their doors to the Samurai and 
other members of the military classes who commenced, in 
1869, to flock to the United States, England, Germany, and 
France, and see and report to their government what Japan 
needed to learn, to rise to the rank of the Western nations. 

The rapidity and adaptibility with which the govern¬ 
ment labored since that year to give its country and people 
the benefit of the inventions and discoveries made by the 
white race nations, on the fields of science, art, trade, and 


150 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


commerce, has called forth the admiration of the world. 
Mr. Adams, an eye-witness of the sudden change that came 
over Japan, at that time wrote about what had been done dur¬ 
ing the years ’69 and 70: 

“The Samurai were extensively adopting European 
and American dress, and laid off their swords. They 
were applying themselves to the study of foreign lan¬ 
guages, and were going abroad in ever-increasing num¬ 
bers. 

“In the matter of the adoption of foreign inventions, 
the telegraph was in full working order between Yoko¬ 
hama and Yedo, and a contract for the construction of 
a railroad between these two points was concluded. 
Lighthouses were springing up, one after another, under 
the superintendence of an English engineer. Everywhere 
activity and change was observable.” 

During the following years Japan imported professional 
men, artisans, mechanics, teachers, physicians, and others 
who could assist in making the people as quickly as pos¬ 
sible, a modern military power. But neither the imported 
foreigners, nor Japanese military men who had visited Amer¬ 
ica and Europe, taught or brought anything which might im¬ 
prove the condition of the working or industrial classes. No 
modern farming or gardening tools or methods were intro¬ 
duced, although Japan’s agricultural workers formed the 
largest and poorest part of the whole population. The na¬ 
tional resources of the country were not opened up to give 
better paying employment to the men cultivating the nu¬ 
merous tiny tracts of garden land, or occupation to the hun¬ 
dreds of thousands of Samurai, when their clans were dis¬ 
solved, and the Daimyo pensioned by the government. It is 
true that the Samurai were, finally, also pensioned, but only 
for a few years, while millions of yen were spent freely to 
organize a large standing army under the general conscrip¬ 
tion law copied from the military powers of Europe. 

For the Samurai, and members of the higher nobility 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


151 


who went to Europe and America, in the early seventies, 
had carefully investigated everything pertaining to the mod¬ 
ern military and naval sciences. They had visited the 
American and English navy yards and warships; they had 
studied, on the battle fields of the Franco-German war of 
1870, the tactics and strategy of the French and German 
armies; they had inspected the military of the other great 
nations, and acquainted themselves with the conscript sys¬ 
tem of the European continent where every country is hound¬ 
ed by several others, and the peoples of none of them are 
safe against hostile attacks by their neighbors. 

The military men of Japan were well aware of their 
own country’s almost perfect safety against such dangers, as 
proven by the historical fact that, in 2500 years, she had 
only twice been invaded and with dire results to the would- 
be conquerors. But, as soon as the Japanese military men 
had returned home, and reported what they had seen of the 
conscript armies of the European countries, excepting Eng¬ 
land, whose insular location allowed her people freedom from 
enforced military service, the Samurai Oligarchs ignored the 
British volunteer system, adopted the conscript law, in 1873, 
and, from that time on, have spared no pains, nor money, to 
make Japan, with the assistance of foreign officers and drill- 
masters, a great military and naval power, for offensive 
purpose, as is proved by her aggressive wars against China 
and Russia, and her, ever since, continued war preparations 
with no enemy in view. 


18 . JAPAN DID NOT ACCEPT THE WESTERN 
CIVILIZATION 

The new government had thus, with great care and 
energy, carried out that part of its secret policy which said: 
“As we are not the equals of the foreigners in the mechan- 


152 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


ical arts, let us have intercourse with foreign countries, and 
learn their drill and tactics.” And because Japan has done 
that, and with great success, it is believed by the foreign 
nations and governments that her people have accepted the 
Western civilization, which is, as has been pointed out before, 
a grave error. It is not to be denied that, as far as their 
war preparations are concerned, and every branch of science, 
art, and mechanical work in any manner connected therewith, 
the Japanese have become as modern, as any Western people. 
But they did not accept the great moral ethics on which the 
Western civilization is based, its spirit of justice, humanity, 
truthfulness and honesty, in the dealings between men and 
nations. These sublime moral laws were and are not wanted 
in Japan, as was shown by the first official act of the Samurai 
Rulers. 

This act was the establishment of the Shinto Cult as 
the state religion, whose doctrines of the divinity of the 
Mikado, and the ancestor worship are political frauds which 
can never be reconciled with the moral teachings of the 
Western civilization. With the aid of that fraudulent Cult 
me present government has been established, with its aid it 
is kept in existence, and with its aid alone does it force 
upon its own people the secret policy of hatred and treach¬ 
ery against the foreign people. That policy was the cause 
of the government’s hostility against the Christian religion, 
the foundation of the Western civilization. It is true that 
this hostility has ceased to be carried on openly, but it is 
firmly planted in the heart of every Japanese child through 
the teaching of the Shinto Cult doctrines in every school and 
in every home throughout the country. 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


153 


19. POPULAR OPPOSITION TO THE GOVERNMENT’S 
FRIENDLINESS TO THE FOREIGNERS 

As this exposure of the secret anti-foreign policies of 
the Samurai government will, no doubt, call forth from the 
latter and its many political writers false statements and ex¬ 
planations of the great political change of the year 1869 to 
73, it is necessary, at the risk of making a few pages of 
this writing tedious reading, to unravel the whole truth about 
the historical events of that most remarkable period of 
Japan’s modern history. The belief of the foreign nations 
that the Japanese people commenced, at that time, to accept 
the Western civilization, was not the only error of the for¬ 
eigners. Simultaneously with it came the mistaken idea that 
the Japanese people had, at once, voluntarily, become friend¬ 
ly to the foreign nations, and thereby produced “the great 
change.” But the reverse is true, as proven by Janpan’s his¬ 
tory. The hatred of the white race had existed in Japan 
since centuries, having been initiated by Iyeyasu through his 
laws excluding the white foreigners in the 17th century, and 
fanned into fanatical passion through the agitation of the 
Satsuma, Choshiu, and other clans, after the two former had 
been punished by the foreign warships for the murder of 
white people. The expulsion of the foreigners became, 
therefore, the program on which the Samurai of Satsuma, 
Choshiu, Tosa, Hizen and allied clans had established the 
government. And when the latter changed its policy of hos¬ 
tility suddenly into one of friendship for all the foreign 
nations, nothing but the respect of the people for their “di¬ 
vine” Mikado saved the usurpers from being deposed by a 
popular uprising. This was the view taken also by Mr. 
Adams who, through his official position, and the constant 
intercourse it gave him with the government leaders, during 
“the great change,” knew the difficulties they met with when 
forcing their policy of foreign friendship upon the natives. 


i 54 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

Mr. Adams tells that, in May, ’69, some English officials 
and also several French subjects had been publicly insulted 
and assailed by Japanese military men. The English and 
French Envoys demanded satisfaction from the government 
which its leaders were afraid to give, because there were 
thousands of Samurai and Shimpei in the capital, waiting 
for the government to expel the foreigners, and not to pro¬ 
tect them. The Shimpei were rabid foreign-haters, most of 
them Samurai who belonged to no clan (Goshi), or who 
had left their clans (Ronins). Associated with them were 
fanatical priests who would rather fight against the foreign¬ 
ers than pray to the Imperial ancestors. Three thousand of 
these men had constituted themselves as the Mikado’s body 
guard, nominally to protect him against the foreigners, but, 
really, to expel the latter from the country. Mr. Adams 
describes the situation thus * 

“A crisis was on hand. The City was full of the 
Shimpei, and other enemies of the foreigners. They and 
the bulk of the Samurai were irritated by the new gov¬ 
ernment, and held their usual language. They said that 
they had assisted in the overthrow of the Shogun on con¬ 
dition of being led against the 'barbarians' who should 
be expelled from Japan; m but when the first part of the 
program had been effected, they found The Advisers' of 
the divine Mikado false to their promises, making friends 
with the foreigners 

When the government, after many delays and evasions, 
finally apologized to the British and French Representatives, 
the wrath against the foreigners ran higher than ever. The 
“Japan Times,” an English newspaper published at that 
time in the capital, printed a translation of a Japanese plac¬ 
ard that was, after the settlement of the case, posted in the 
City as a protest against the action of the government. It 
read as follows: 

“Although, in consequence of the sudden outbreak 
of war in the spring of last year (1868), we were obliged 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


155 


to contract friendly relations with the foreigners, yet the 
expulsion of the barbarians is the most important lazv in 
our country. The possibility of the empire being over¬ 
thrown by the hateful barbarians, and the difficulty with 
which the dignity of the Mikado is maintained, are, at 
present, matters of grave reflection with the government. 
Gradually, too, the detestable barbarians become more 
overbearing, and the instances of their insolence become 
more numerous.” 

During the years ’69 to 71 several uprisings took place 
in different parts of Japan, which were, in most cases, 
caused by men who agitated for the expulsion of the foreign¬ 
ers promised by the government. Some of these disturb¬ 
ances were initiated by peasants who rebelled against cor¬ 
rupt officials, while some were started by Samurai and other 
higher members of the military nobility, for the purpose of 
forcing the government to abandon its sudden friendship for 
the foreign nations, or to depose its leaders. The latter, 
therefore, appealed, in January, 71, to the Satsuma, Choshiu, 
and Tosa clans, who had put them in power, for military 
assistance, which was granted and formed the nucleus of 
the national soldiery. A short while afterwards a new, semi¬ 
official newspaper was started, the “Shimbua Zasshi,” which 
endeavored to mold public opinion so as to become favorable 
to the government. In this paper the intended dissolution of 
the clans was discussed, and the proposition made, that the 
government, besides providing liberal incomes for the, to- 
be-dispossessed, Daimyo, also make provision for the support 
of their former military retainers. 


20. MIKADO’S ADVISERS DISTRUSTED BY MASSES OF 
SAMURAI 

This was a bid for the good will of the Samurai, but the 
distrust of many of them in the government leaders was too 
strong to be so easily dispelled. They kept on conspiring, 


156 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


assailing the foreigners, and agitating against the Advisers 
of the Mikado more energetically than ever. On January, 
71, some peasants in Kiushiu rebelled on account of some 
tax-matter against the local officials, and destroyed the gov¬ 
ernment buildings. They were supported by a band of 
Samurai. At the same time a number of fighting men from 
the Choshiu, the clan which had assisted in defeating Shogun 
Keiki, got up a conspiracy against the ruling Samurai which 
was, however, nipped in the bud. In the same month two 
English teachers of the Japanese college at Yedo were 
assailed and wounded. In February a prominent govern¬ 
ment official of the Choshiu clan, one of the conspirators 
who captured the Court and Mikado in ’68, was assassinated, 
and the murderers who were supposed to be Samurai never 
detected. In April an embryo rebellion in which some Court 
nobles were the leaders had to be squelched. In this plot a 
number of persons were engaged who intended to use bombs, 
burn the capital, and murder the government officials, after 
which the foreigners were to be expelled. Mr. Adams wrote 
about these disturbances: 

“It was evident that the large conspiracy had some 
connection with the troubles in the provinces where the 
peasants were incited by members of bands of Ronins 
and deserters who had left their clans. It should be 
particularly observed that in most, at least, of such upris¬ 
ings, as in the last instance, the old anti-foreign cry was 
again heard, and the same has happened in subsequent 
cases. Whenever the ignorant peasants rose under the 
infliction of some injustice at the hands of officials, there 
were, since ‘the Restoration,’ in ’68, never wanting men 
of the Samurai class who were deeply irritated at their 
fallen state; from being retainers of a proud Daimyo, 
with plenty of rice to eat, and now and then a man to 
kill, they had become Ronins (free lances), living from 
hand to mouth, who, like the Shimpei and Goshi, could 
not comprehend the friendly attitude towards the for¬ 
eigners which was now the ruling policy of the Mikado’s 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


157 


Advisers; and who were ready to indulge in the wildest 
schemes in order that the record object of the old pro¬ 
gram might be carried out, namely, the expulsion of the 
‘barbarians' from Japan. 

“No wonder then that, during the spring of VI, 
uneasiness was felt by the government, an uneasiness 
which they could not conceal from the foreign Repre¬ 
sentatives ; no wonder that additional precautions were 
taken in Yedo and in the open ports, and that a cordon 
of posts was established around Kobo, where the Foreign 
Representatives resided.” 


21. NATIVES AND FOREIGNERS CONJECTURE 
EXISTENCE OF SECRET GOVERNMENT 
POLICY 

These quotations from the history of Japan during “the 
great political change” in the early seventies furnish ample 
proof that the people had not produced that change, but that 
it had been forced upon them by the leaders of the govern¬ 
ment, for some reason that was unknown to the non-aristo- 
cratic masses. It was also incomprehensible to many thou¬ 
sands of the Samurai who had shed their blood in a savagely 
fought civil war to establish men in the supreme power who 
were to expel the hated “barbarians” but, after having got 
control of the government, invited more of them to come to 
Japan. 

In order to render it perfectly plain that Japan wa*, 
at that time, not endeavoring to become civilized like the 
Western nations, and that the government followed a secret 
policy which was known to the leading military nobles and 
supported by them and their councilors, another extract 
from Mr. Adams’ historical writings is to be adduced. The 
government had, in the summer of VI, announced in its new 
newspaper that it intended to dissolve the clans, and reduce 
the Daimyo to private nobles. 


158 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


Mr. Adams, who had, at that time, charge of the Brit¬ 
ish Legation and consequently grave responsibilities, was 
afraid that the proposition would produce serious disturb¬ 
ances, and he endeavored to dissuade the ruling Oligarchs 
from their purpose. He ascertained, however, that there 
were political secrets interwoven with the government’s plans, 
which he did not know, but which, evidently, were powerful 
enough to cause the proud military aristocrats to submit, 
willingly, to the dictates of their former retainers who now 
wielded the supreme power. Mr. Adams acknowledged this 
in his book in the following plain statement: 

“Although the radical change thus announced ap¬ 
peared bold and hazardous to foreigners who, as yet, are 
hut imperfectly acquainted with the machinery of the 
government, and of all the means by which they can zvork 
upon the nation , the member of the cabinet with whom 
I spoke on the subject expressed its greatest confidence 
in its success. The hope of such success rested, no doubt, 
in the obedience which a quiet and subservient peasantry 
had been accustomed to pay to the Authorities. It was 
soon seen that the Ex-Daimyo, in general, accustomed 
themselves to their altered positions, and many seemed 
delighted with it. This , too, had been a subject of gen¬ 
eral surprise to foreigners, and naturally so.” 

This public acknowledgement of the leading Foreigin 
Representative who had, during three years, been in constant 
contact with the members of the new government, that he and 
all the other foreigners did not understand the secret work¬ 
ings and influence of the governmental machinery shows that 
there existed a secret policy which none but the ruling 
Samurai, their following in their class, and the Daimyo 
seemed to know. It is, therefore, not surprising that, in 
later years, after the incidents of “the great change” of 
Japan’s public life had been, at every occasion, misrepresent¬ 
ed by native writers, like Okuma and other Samurai, the for¬ 
eign nations and their governments did not learn the truth 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


159 


about that change. But Mr. Adams had perceived at least 
part of the truth, when he stated that the people had not 
brought about the change, but accepted it out of loyalty to 
the Mikado. It was not the government’s intention that the 
people should know the secret anti-foreign and war policy 
that would, in course of time, cause hundreds of thousands 
of them to be slaughtered on battle fields in foreign countries. 
And the bulk of the Samurai were not informed of the gov¬ 
ernment’s plans, lest they might in their boasting spells, or 
when under the influence of liquor, betray the secret, and the 
outside world become aware of it. 

But there can be no doubt that the willingness of the 
Daimyo to abolish the ancient feudalism, and create, together 
with their now ruling former retainers, a modern aristocracy 
based not only upon noble birth but also upon ability and 
merit, helped a great deal to allay the wrath of the rebellious 
Samurai, and led them to conjecture that the government’s 
friendly attitude to the foreign nations were, perhaps, part 
of some political plot which, in course of time, would justify 
the action of the Samurai Oligarchy. This conception was 
strengthened when it became known that the government had, 
in ’71, sent an ambassadorial party to the Western nations 
for the purpose of changing and abrogating some of the 
treaties which were, in 1854, forced upon Japan. 

The agricultural population was won over to the support 
of the new government by a change of the land laws through 
which eleven millions of acres were given to the farmers 
under a perpetual lease for them and their heirs, for which 
they had to pay 3% yen ($1.75) a year, per acre. To 
appease the Samurai of all the clans, who, as the leaders 
of the government well knew, would never cease plotting as 
long as they were idle soldiers, and had the power to disturb 
the peace of the country, a law was enacted by which they 
were all pensioned, the Samurai soldiery abolished, and the 


160 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

h . % 

European conscript system adopted. The Samurai thus 
ceased to be “two-sworded nobles/’ but received a financial 
remuneration, which gave them a subsistence for several 
years during which they had time to learn a trade or engage 
in some business, which was rendered comparatively easy to 
them through the superior education they had received in 
the Samurai schools. But some of them fared still better. 

The men from the clans whose Samurai had, in ’68, ob¬ 
tained and still held, possession of the government were em¬ 
ployed partly in the many public offices, partly as officers in 
the new army and navy that were organized under the direc¬ 
tion of the imported, American and European military and 
naval instructors. The navy was filled with Satsuma men, 
while the Choshiu clansmen became principally army officers, 
because the leading members of the board of Advisers were 
from those two clans. This was the crowning work of the 
Samurai Oligarchs in the establishment of their government. 
They had now an army and navy, and an administration 
which were supporting them in the possession of the supreme 
power. For these Samurai officers and officials were too 
intelligent to believe in the Mikado’s divinity or in his ability 
to rule the country. And the common people were not intel¬ 
ligent enough to perceive the gigantic political fraud sur¬ 
rounding the Mikado and forming the base of the govern¬ 
ment. Nor had they any idea about the secret war policy 
against the foreign nations which the Samurai Oligarchs and 
the nobility had agreed upon. 


22. GOVERNMENT TIRES OF FOREIGN INFLUENCE 
IN JAPAN 

The Foreign Representatives were also deceived by “the 
great change.” Not knowing the “Philosophy of Falsehood” 
which guided the government leaders, they believed in the 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


161 


sincerity of their friendliness to the foreigners and in their 
honest intention to make a modern nation out of their peo¬ 
ple. But the foreign officials were, also, as Mr. Adams, the 
British Envoy, acknowledged, aware that they were “not thor¬ 
oughly acquainted with the machinery of the Japanese gov¬ 
ernment, and the means it possessed to influence the differ¬ 
ent classes of the population.” Consequently the foreign 
governments were not inclined yet, to trust the lives, welfare, 
and financial interests of their subjects into the hands of the 
Samurai Oligarchs. But the latter had an entirely different 
opinion on that subject. Their innate hatred of the white 
race made them weary of the prolonged political restrictions 
placed upon the Japanese government by the foreign officials. 
It was a severe shock to their pride to hunt down a male¬ 
factor of their own race for some act of violence or a crime 
committed against a white person, and to punish the offender, 
according to the gravity of the offense as it appeared to the 
Foreign Legations. And every member of the Samurai gov¬ 
ernment, from the highest down to the lowest, felt it as an 
insult to the Japanese race—according to their belief the 
most superior one on earth—that their government was not 
allowed to punish a subject of any of the Western nations 
who had violated the laws of the country, but had to deliver 
him to the Foreign Legations to be tried and punished as 
they saw fit. This procedure appeared to the self-conceited 
Samurai in charge of the government unbearably humiliat¬ 
ing, so that as early as 1871, while their own position was 
yet insecure, and not strong enough to fully protect their 
own people against native offenders, they concluded, never¬ 
theless, to demand that the ex-territoriality treaties with the 
foreign nations, which the Tokugawa Shoguns, knowing the 
insufficiency of their laws and officials to protect the for¬ 
eigners, had granted—be rescinded, and every foreigner, 


162 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

residing in Japan permanently or temporarily, become sub¬ 
ject to the laws of the country. 

The most prominent government officials, led by Prince 
Iwakura, the Court noble who had been one of the chief 
plotters in the capture of the Court, in ’68, went to America 
and Europe to negotiate with the foreign governments. The 
whole party contained 50 members who worked energetically 
for nearly three years, to obtain their purpose. They made 
the most earnest representations regarding the friendliness of 
the Japanese government and people to the white race; but 
their labors were only partly successful. The foreign gov¬ 
ernments were sufficiently deceived by those assurances to 
believe that the Monarchy of the Mikados had been restored, 
and that the young Sovereign would rule his people with a 
view of keeping on friendly terms with the white race na¬ 
tions ; but the conversion of the military classes had come 
so suddenly as to excite doubts in Europe and America about 
its continuance. The Samurai Oligarchs had to wait till 
1899, before the ex-territoriality treaties were rescinded by 
the foreign powers, and Japan allowed to rank as their 
equal. Iwakura and his party returned home, and with re¬ 
newed energy applied themselves to the task of preparing 
Japan, according to their secret policy, to prove on the battle 
field in the near future that their race was not only equal 
but superior to the “white barbarians.” 


23. “BUSHIDO” NOT JAPAN’S CODE OF MORALS 

It is to be expected that the exposure made herein of 
the criminal record of some of the ’’Restoration Statesmen,” 
a.s the ruling Samurai like to be called, will be objected to 
on the ground that the crimes they had committed were polit¬ 
ical ones. And it will be asserted by leading Japanese that 
their whole population is averse to such deeds of “violence,” 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


163 


because they have in “Bushido” a national code of morals 
that forbids such crimes severely and teaches the same vir¬ 
tues upon which the Christian civilization is based. 

Count Okuma discusses in his book, “Fifty Years of 
New Japan,” the Ethics of Bushido, and dates their origin 
back to the eighth century A. D. He writes: 

“It was at this period of time that there began to 
develop among the warriors, by virtue of their competi¬ 
tion for renown, that sense of self-sacrificing courage 
which later grew into the knightly code of ethics called 
Bushido. (Bushi-do, the ‘way of the Bushi or Samurai’). 

“The ethics of the warrior of mediaeval Japan 
(about 1400 A. D.) may be gathered from the following 
passage in the ‘Chikuba-Sho,’ written by Yoshimoshi 
Shiba, Regent to Yoshimitsu Ashikaga: ‘The warrior 
should conduct himself with the thought of his posterity 
in mind. He should not incur eternal ill-fame by spar¬ 
ing his own life, nor should be make himself an object 
of ridicule by unnecessarily losing his life. He should 
not be reckless, but should temper and train his mind 
at ordinary times. Each warrior cultivated his own 
thoughts regarding his military course of conduct, and 
transmitted them to his children, so that the famil} 
prserved its own principles. ‘Rather than imitate clever 
strangers,’ it is said in the ‘Chikuba-Sho,’ imitate your 
simple father, for, by so doing you will preserve your 
own principles and may be worthy of your predecessor.’ 
“From the above remarks it will be seen that compe¬ 
tition between warriors was an honorable method of en¬ 
hancing the renown of one’s house by giving up life at 
the proper time, and in the proper manner, and the de¬ 
duction naturally follows that such competition had little 
to do zvith the peaceful relations betzveen one another 

Professor Inaze Nitobe of the Imperial University of 
Tokyo has published a book on “Bushido, the Soul of Japan,” 
of which Mr. Alfred Stead, the favorite Court author, gives 
the following resume: 


164 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


“To turn to Professor Nitobe’s book for a definite 
description of Bushido, one finds that Bushido is the 
code of moral principles which the knights were required 
or instructed to observe. It is not a written code; at best, 
it consists of a few maxims handed down from mouth 
to mouth or coming from the pen of some well-known 
warrior or savant. More frequently it is a code unwrit¬ 
ten and unuttered, possessing all the more the powerful 
sanction of veritable deed, and of law written on the 
fleshy tablets of the heart. It was founded, not on the 
creation of one brain, however renowned. It was an or¬ 
ganic growth of decades and centuries of military career.” 

More interesting is what Nitobe has to say about the 
basis of the Ethics of Bushido. He claims that they teach 
Rectitude, Honesty, Benevolence, Courage, Filial Love, Loy¬ 
alty and some other virtues, all of which are instilled on the 
minds of the Japanese by their sense of honor, as he ex¬ 
plains in the following statement: 

“The inborn race instinct of honor is the only safe- 
guard of our public morals, the sole imperative check on 
our private conduct, the one foundation of patriotism and 
loyalty; honor is the only tie that binds the Japanese to 
the ethical world. Any other power is still feeble in its 
infancy, or in its senility, though there is no denying 
that numerous and attractive panaceas are being adver¬ 
tised at every corner of the streets. Buddhism has lost 
its earnest strivings, burying itself with petty trifles 
among its small sects. The light of Confucius and Men¬ 
cius has paled before the more taking, if variegated, 
light of later philosophers. Christianity has wandered 
far from the teachings of its divine founder, and as too 
often preached is a farce and a caricature of the original. 
Unitarians present us with balance sheets of pleasure and 
pain, assuring us that theirs is the only scientific system 
of moral bookkeeping. Materialism is not slack in enlist¬ 
ing a large following to which it doles out in well-tasting 
pills such comfort as the world can give. 

“But all these systems and schools of ethics are 
in Japan mainly confined to lecture rooms and loud 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


165 


talkers. The heart of the nation is still swayed by 
Bushido. It is through the medium of Bushido that the 
best reverence of our fathers and the noblest love of 
our mothers still exists; for our flesh and blood has been 
imbued with it. 

“The spirit of Bushido is ever ready to listen to, 
and to adopt whatever is good, pure, and of good repute. 
The transformation of modern Japan is itself the fruit 
of the teachings of Bushido. 

“When we opened the whole country to foreign 
trade, when we introduced the latest improvement in 
every department of life, when we began to study West¬ 
ern politics and sciences, our guiding motive was not the 
development of our physical resources and the increase 
of wealth; much less was it a blind infatuation of West¬ 
ern customs. The sense of honor which cannot hear 
being looked down upon as an inferior power —that was 
the strongest of motives. Pecuniary or industrial con¬ 
siderations were awakened later in the process of trans¬ 
formation.” 

Count (later on “Marquis” and “Prince”) Ito gave in 
Count Okuma’s book the following description of Bushido 
and its effect on the character of the members of the ruling 
military classes: 

“I must disabuse my readers of the very common 
illusion that there was no education and an entire absence 
of public spirit during feudal times. It is this false im¬ 
pression which leads superficial observers of our country 
to believe that our civilization has been so recent that its 
continuance is a doubtful problem, the ultimate solution 
of which can only be judged by future events—in short, 
that our civilization is nothing but a hastily donned, 
superficial veneer. On the contrary, I am not exaggerat¬ 
ing, when I say that, for generations and centuries, we 
have been enjoying a moral education of the highest type. 
The great ideals offered by philosophy and by historical 
examples of the golden age of China and India, Japanized 
in the form of a “crust of customs” developed and sanc¬ 
tioned by the continual usage of centuries under the com- 


166 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


prehensive name of Bushido, offered us splendid stand¬ 
ards of morality, vigorously enforced in the every-day 
life of the educated classes. 

“Let me also state, en passant, that the humani¬ 
tarian efforts which, in the course of the recent war 
(with Russia) were so much in existence, and which so 
much surprised Western nations, were not, as might 
have been thought, the products of the new civilization, 
but the survivals of our ancient feudal chivalry.” 

There is a difference between Okuma’s writings on the 
subject of Bushido and the statements of Nitobe and Ito. 
But as he published in his book the latter’s praise of the 
effects of Bushido upon the Japanese people without com¬ 
menting upon it, he tacitly endorsed it, so that the outside, 
world learns from such high authorities as two of Japan’s 
most prominent “Restoration Statesmen” and officials, and 
the most distinguished University Professor, that the “Ethics 
of Bushido” have given the military class and, through them, 
the people, centuries ago, a moral education of the highest 
type, thus making Bushido “the Soul of Japan.” It was the 
purpose of these discussions of “Japan’s knightly code of 
morals,” as the authors call it, to convince the foreign na¬ 
tions that the Japanese have, since centuries, possessed as 
high a civilization as the white race people of America and 
Europe. 

This had, in the opinion of Count Ito, become necessary 
because, after the Oligarchs had promised to give Japan in 
1890 a new Constitution, he had been charged with the 
framing of it; and to inform himself on the constitutional 
law of the great foreign powers, he spent a few years in the 
foreign countries to study their supreme law. He, there, was 
informed that the constitutions of all the Christian people 
having modern governments, were based upon the same 
great moral principles which formed the foundation of the 
Christian civilization; and he also became aware that those 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 167 

nations consider every other people which does not possess 
a similar basis of their national law, as more or less savages. 

Ito thus learned that if his people wanted to be treated 
as being civilized, and to obtain the recision of the ex-ter- 
ritoriality treaties with the foreign nations, they must show 
in their schools, their churches or temples, and their laws, 
that they possessed a civilization based upon the same great 
moral laws which Christianity teaches. And as neither 
Buddhism, nor the Chinese classics, nor the Shinto Cult, 
answered that purpose, Ito decided to introduce Bushido as 
Japan’s ancient code of morals. He caused the Privy Coun¬ 
cil which, in 1890, promulgated the new Constitution, to 
issue at the same time an “Imperial Rescript on Education” 
which ordered the teaching in every public school of the 
Shinto Cult doctrine of the divinity of the Emperor, and of 
several virtues which seemed to be taken from the Christian 
or Jewish religions, but were made known as the ancient 
“Ethics of Bushido” about which, later on, Nitobe wrote his 
book “Bushido, the Soul of Japan,” and Count Ito his praise 
of the high civilization given his country by that time-hon¬ 
ored “code of morals.” 

Are these claims justified? The Japanese history will 
certainly prove it, if they are. Count Ito stated, in order 
to give a modern example of the efficiency of Bushido that 
the humanitarian efforts made by the Japanese during the 
war with Russia in the treatment of wounded and captured 
enemies were not the product of any new civilization adopted 
from the Western nations, but a survival of the ancient 
feudal chivalry taught by the Ethics of Bushido. 

That claim of Count Ito is contradicted by the numerous 
unprovoked, and often exceedingly cruel murders of defense¬ 
less white foreigners committed by two-sworded Samurai 
nobles in the years of peace from 1854 to ’68; but the Jap¬ 
anese Rulers consider them as patriotic deeds against unde- 



168 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

sirable foreigners who came, without permission and unin¬ 
vited, to Japan. The year 1868 furnished a glaring exam¬ 
ple though of the manner in which the Samurai treated 
wounded captives of their own race. It has previously been 
related that in the short war against Shogun Keiki his de¬ 
feated followers retreated to Ozaka, where hundreds of their 
wounded had been placed in his castle, because they were 
unable to flee any further. They were burnt to death by the 
victorious Samurai of the Satsuma and Choshiu clans, of 
which latter Ito was a member. 

This was not an extraordinary proceeding: it had never 
been forbidden by the Ethics of Bushido. To the contrary, 
every Japanese child old enough to read the records of Jap¬ 
anese history knows that it was customary in their country, 
since ancient times, that the victors in a battle or siege killed 
their prisoners and helpless wounded enemies, and often 
their wives and children. One instance of that kind, that 
happened at the end of the civil wars after the successful 
siege of Ozaka by the great Shogun Iyeyasu, is told in an 
excellent literary work entitled: “A History of Japan, dur¬ 
ing the century of early foreign intercourse, from 1543 to 
1651. By James Murdock, A. M., in collaboration with Isoh 
Yamagata” From this book, which gives, from the best ob¬ 
tainable Japanese sources a description of the actions of the 
members of the military class during that most interesting 
period of the history of Old Japan, the following relation of 
the fate of the defeated defenders of Ozaka is quoted: 

“After the fall of Ozaka, the great stronghold of 
the defeated Hideyori, the latter, with his wife and 
friends, after waiting in vain for a pardon from the 
victor, committed Hara-kiri. Of the captured leaders the 
only one that was treated with any consideration at all 
was Ono Harufusu, and in his case the consideration 
merely extended to his being allowed to die by his own 
hand. Ono Daken, another military leader, who had, 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


169 


at the beginning of the campaign, fired the town of Sakai, 
was turned over to the enraged citizens of that mart, and 
they wreaked a cruel and fell revenge on him. Choso- 
kabe and 72 other captains were decapitated, and had 
their heads ignominiously exposed on the public pillories. 
As for the rank and file who had escaped, they were 
remorselessly done to death wherever and whenever 
detected. Even innocent children were ruthlessly made 
away with. Kunimatsumaru, the 8-year-old natural son 
of Hideyori, was seized at Fushimi on the 22nd of the 
5th month and beheaded in Kiyoto on the following day, 
while the 10-year-old child of Sengoku, one of the Ozaka 
commanders, and many more of equally tender years, 
met a similar fate.” 

It was Tokugawa Iyeyasu, Japan’s greatest statesman 
who, after his death, was apotheosised, who ordered this 
slaughter of wounded and captive enemies and children. The 
defeated Hideyori was the son of the great Hideyoshi, 
Japan’s greatest general, under whom Iyeyasu had served, 
and the son-in-law of the latter’s son Hidetada. This rela¬ 
tionship did not help the defeated man, nor his family and 
soldiers of the latter of which there were, according to vari¬ 
ous accounts, from 120,000 to 170,000 all of whom were 
either killed in battle, committed Hara-kiri if they had an 
opportunity to do so, or were butchered after the battle was 
over. 

Twenty-two years later the so-called Shimabara rebel¬ 
lion took place, in 1637 to ’38. The same above quoted 
authors, Messrs. Murdock and Yamagata, relate that the 
farmers of two provinces rebelled for being overtaxed, and 
tortured and murdered, often together with their female fam¬ 
ily members, if they could not pay the taxes. There were 
37,000 of them, men, women and children. Of this whole 
number only 105 were taken prisoners, the others were either 
killed during the fighting, which lasted several days, or 
butchered after they had, from want of food and ammuni- 


170 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

tion, quit fighting. That a large number of these unfortu¬ 
nates were Christians did, no doubt, increase the blood¬ 
thirstiness of the victorious Samurai; but the fact that of 
the 37,000 people no more than 20,000 were fighting men, 
and the rest defenseless old men, women and children, and 
yet only 105 persons saved from the massacre, shows that the 
soldiery was animated by a lust of murder to which they 
were evidently accustomed. When, in view of such well- 
known historical facts as the murder of more than a hundred 
thousand of helpless men, women and children at Ozaka and 
Shimbara, Count Ito claims that the humane treatment given 
the Russians in 1904 and 1905 was the product of “ancient 
feudal chivalry” taught by Bushido,” he simply shows how 
recklessly the “Restoration Statesman” will employ the 
“Philosophy of Falsehood” in order to carry out their deceiv¬ 
ing political stratagems. 

It is a fact that Bushido gave no rules at all about the 
treatment of wounded enemies or prisoners, as shown by a 
set of rules selected by Capt. Brinkley as a typical one. He 
writes, in his book, “Japan”: 

“The rules of conduct prescribed for the Bushido 
varied more or less, in different fiefs; each feudal chief 
enacting his own code. As a general type it will be suf¬ 
ficient to quote one set of regulations—those formulated 
by Kato Kiyomasa, a celebrated general of the sixteenth 
century : 

“ ‘The following regulations are to be observed by 
Samurai of every rank, the highest and the lowest alike: 

“ T. The routine of service must be strictly observed. 
From 6 a. m. military services shall be practiced. Arch¬ 
ery, gunnery and equestrianism must not be neglected. 
If any man shows greater proficiency than his comrades 
in the Way of the Bushi, he shall receive extra pay. 

“ ‘2. Those that desire recreation may engage in 
hawking, deer hunting, or wrestling. 

“ ‘3. With regard to dress, garments of cotton or 
pongee shall be worn. Any one incurring debts owing to 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


171 


extravagance of costume or living shall be considered a 
law-breaker. If, however, being zealous in the practice 
of military arts suitable to his rank, a man desires to 
hire instructors, an allowance for that purpose may be 
granted. 

“ ‘4. The stample of diet shall be unhulled rice. At 
social entertainments, one guest for one host is the proper 
limit. Only when men are assembled for military exer¬ 
cises should many dine together. 

“ ‘5. It is the duty of every Samurai to make him¬ 
self acquainted with the principles of his craft. Extrava¬ 
gant display of adornment are forbidden in battle. 

“ ‘6. Dancing, or organizing dances, is unlawful; it 
is likely to betray sword-carrying men to acts of violence. 
Whatever a man does should be done with his heart. 
Therefore for the soldier military amusements alone are 
suitable. The penalty for violating this provision is 
death by suicide. 

“ ‘7. Learning should be encouraged. Military 
books should be read. The spirit of loyalty and filial 
piety must he educated before all things. Poem-compos¬ 
ing pastimes are not to be engaged in by Samurai. To 
be addicted to such amusements is to resemble a woman. 
A man born a Samurai should live and die sword in 
hand. Unless he be thus trained in time of peace, he 
will be useless in the hour of stress. To he brave and 
warlike must be his invariable condition. 

“ ‘8. Whoever finds these rules too severe shall be 
relieved from service. Should investigation show that 
anyone is so unfortunate as to lack manly qualities, he 
shall be singled out and dismissed forthwith. The im¬ 
perative character of these instructions must not be 
doubted! 

“The obviously paramount purpose of these regu¬ 
lations was to draw a sharp line of demarkation between 
the Samurai and the Courtiers. The dancing, the coup¬ 
let-composing, the sumptuous living, and the fine cos¬ 
tumes of officials frequenting the Imperial capital were 
strictly interdicted by the feudatories. Frugality, fealty, 
and filial piety—these may be called the fundamental 


172 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


virtues of the Bushi. Owing to the circumstances out 
of which his caste had grown, he regarded all bread¬ 
winning pursuits with contempt. ,, 

As this set of rules was one of the general type used, 
it shows plainly that Bushido was not only intended for none 
but the Samurai class, but also gave no moral ethics except 
the demand for loyalty and filial piety which are taught by 
the Shinto religion. And, besides that, the end of the civil 
wars put an end to the existence of military leaders and the 
prescription of new Bushido rules. Their place was taken 
by regulations issued by order of the Shoguns, and not con¬ 
fined to the conduct of the Samurai alone, but also extended 
to other military nobles, and even the Daimyo. Messrs. Mur¬ 
dock and Yamagata state in their “History of Japan” that, 
after the final victory of Shogun Iyeyasu, and the commence¬ 
ment of the peace-era in 1600, a set of (( Buke Shohatto ” 
(regulations for the military class) was penned by Hazami 
Kazan, a Chinese scholar, and communicated in Fushimi 
Castle to the Daimyo Honda Mazazumi, and, on that occa¬ 
sion, commented on and expounded. The authors, Messrs. 
M. & Y., write that, as this document is the model on which 
many other similar ones were subsequently framed, it may 
not be amiss to reproduce it in full. It sets forth”: 

“1. That the study of literature and of the art of 
war, archery, and horsemanship should be strenuously 
prosecuted or practiced. 

“2. That excessive drinking and licentious amuse¬ 
ments should be prohibited. 

“3. That national law-breakers should not be harbored 
in the different fiefs. 

“4. That in engaging men and soldiers, the great 
and little Lords and the various salaried men should 
summarily reject those who might be denounced as 
traitors and murderers. 

“ ‘5. That henceforth only the native-born, to the 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 173 

exclusion of all men from other fiefs, should be permit¬ 
ted to reside in a fief. 

“6. That even the repair of the castles should be 
notified; much more are new constructions prohibited. 

“7. That should there be in the neighboring fiefs 
men who scheme for a new order of things, raising 
factions and parties, they should be speedily announced. 

“8. That marriages should not be privately con¬ 
tracted. 

“9. That the retinues of various Daimyo, going 
up to, and during their residence in, Yedo should be 
properly limited in number. 

‘TO. That the articles of dress should not be arbi¬ 
trarily and promiscuously selected. 

“11. That private persons should not use palan¬ 
quins. , i M 

“12. That the Samurai of the various fiefs should 
be frugal in their livelihood. 

“13. That the heads of fiefs should choose capable 
persons as their ministers or advisers.” 

From these regulations and the rules of Bushido before 
quoted from Count Okuma’s and Capt. Brinkley’s writings, 
it is plainly to be seen that they were not intended to give 
the members of the military nobility a moral education. The 
frugality and bravery which the Samurai was taught to be 
virtues that he must possess, can not be classified as such, but 
were necessities of his life. His scant income compelled him 
to live economically, and his occupation of a soldier did not 
allow him to be a coward. Loyalty and filial piety were 
religious duties taught by the Shinto Cult, and the only vir¬ 
tues of the whole people. But they were not sufficient to 
give them an high civilization. The commandments of the 
Decalogue, the base of the laws of all the civilized nations, 
were not adopted by the Japanese, and the greatest command 
of all the great religions known to the world—“to love thy 


174 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


neighbor as thyself”—was unknown to them. Hence their 
civilization was that of the semi-savage, notwithstanding the 
fact that there lived a small number of men among them who 
had adopted, from the teachings of Confucius, the highest 
Chinese education. They were the exceptions of whom 
George Washington, in his Welfare Address, speaks, who 
may lead high moral lives without having any religious belief. 
But their example was not followed by the Japanese nobility 
or common people. They indulged in lying, hypocrisy, dis¬ 
honesty, deceitfulness, hatred, false ambition, cruelty, mur¬ 
der, and licentiousness, notwithstanding the teachings of 
Bushido and Buke Shohatto, none of whose rules and regu¬ 
lations have ever endeavored to suppress those vices. The 
condition of the ruling classes, in 1868, when the new gov¬ 
ernment was formed, proves this. The life of the boy- 
Mikado and their courtiers and concubines, has been cor¬ 
rectly depicted by Ex-Consul, Prof. Langford, when he 
wrote in his “Story of Japan”: 

“They were immured in their palaces in the society 
of women and courtiers little better informed than them¬ 
selves, cut off from all the actual intelligence of the 
Empire, and so brought up that they were equally des¬ 
titute of manhood, of physical and mental energy, and 
could not, if they would, make their names a power to 
influence the government.” 

About the life of the Daimyo there is Samurai testimony 
which describes it fully. At the time, in 1869, when the 
Territorial Princes abdicated as such and adopted the posi¬ 
tions of Governors under the new government, Mr. Adams, 
of the British Legation, discussed that important political 
event in his book and referred to a pamphlet published at 
that time by an adherent of the Samurai usurpers, as follows: 

“If it is not clear to my readers why this change 
was effected without a serious opposition on the part of 
the Daimyo, I can only record my opinion that it was 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 175 

because these nobles were puppets in the hands of some 
of their clansmen; that they were ignorant of affairs 
and could not comprehend the nature of the change. 
And in further exemplification of this statement the 
pamphlet, ‘Han Rou’, a discussion written by an edu¬ 
cated Japanese, may be quoted: ‘The great majority 
of the feudal Lords are generally persons who have 
been born and nurtured in the seclusion of the women’s 
apartments, who have been cherished as tenderly as if 
they were delicate ornaments of jewels or pearls. Even 
when they had grown up to man’s estate, they still exhib¬ 
ited all the traits of childhood, having never mastered 
the details of business, they feel no sense of respon¬ 
sibility in approaching affairs of state. Leading a life 
of leisure, they succeeded to the inheritance of their 
ancestors. With their bodies clad in gorgeous apparel, 
they feel not the winter’s blast, and know not that 
men pine of starvation and cold. With the beauty of 
their wives and concubines arrayed before them, and 
the sounds of music and reveling ringing in their ears, 
they leave no desire of the heart unsatisfied. Even now 
(in 1869), that the symptoms of decline have unmis¬ 
takably set in, they are intent upon all the pleasures 
that yet remain to be exhausted. And in the same 
category are those who, though designated vassals, are 
born of good family on the great estates. Not only the 
Lords, but also the vassals, acted as has been described 
here.” 

Count Okuma acknowledged in his book that the Daimyo 
^nd leading nobles had, during the 250 years of peace, lost 
their virility, so that the low class Samurai who, too poor to 
lead licentious byes, had been able to retain their vitality, 
got the opportunity of usurping the supreme power by trea¬ 
son, treachery and violence, and by a stupendous game of 
political deceit have succeeded in keeping possession of it 
ever since, with the full knowledge and consent of all the 
members of the old military classes. 

That the Oligarchs and their followers have adopted, 


176 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


since their control of the government, humanitarian methods 
in war, especially in the treatment of wounded and captured 
enemies, has, certainly, not been done through any Bushido 
teaching which, to the contrary, has since ages, in all the 
Japanese wars, permitted the murder of such helpless ene¬ 
mies as a custom inherited from mythical times. But in 
modern Japan, her government officials and the military and 
naval officers had, in order not to appear as half-savages, to 
adopt the general rules of civilized warfare taught them by 
their white race instructors. And when their actions in the 
Chinese and Russian wars are closely scrutinized, there is 
more than one which bears the stamp, rather, of Japan’s for¬ 
mer savage customs, than of modern civilization. Thus, in 
the war with China, the sinking, by a Japanese man-of-war, 
of the transport Kowshing while sailing under the English 
flag* together with 1,500 helpless soldiers, was an act of sav¬ 
agery. A civilized naval officer would have made the soldiers 
prisoners and saved their lives. In 1904 the same Japanese 
captain had the Russian fleet of battleships in Port Arthur 
torpedoed and sunk, before the diplomatic relations between 
Russia and Japan had been broken off, which was an act of 
treachery of which no civilized naval officer would have been 
guilty. Yet the commanding officer who committed both 
these acts of uncivilized Japanese warfare has been cele¬ 
brated, ever since, as one of Japan’s great naval heroes; it 
was Admiral Togo. The sinking of two small Russian war¬ 
ships while lying in a neutral Korean harbor was, also, not a 
deed of honor to the larger Japanese warships which de¬ 
stroyed them, nor a permissible act of civilized warfare. 

But, to sum up the subject of Bushido, it must be ad¬ 
mitted by every veracious student of Japanese history and 
civilization, that as a code of moral ethics, as described by 
Count Ito, and the learned Professor Itobe, Bushido has 
never existed in old Japan. And in modern Japan not 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


177 


Bushido, but the Shinto Cult, is taught in every school of the 
country as the state-religion, while the successors and off¬ 
spring of the military nobles and their retainers, who form 
the ruling class, are firm adherents of the “Philosophy of 
Falsehood,” by which they have, since 1868, successfully de¬ 
ceived their Emperor, their people, and the civilized nations 
about the fraudulent character of the Samurai government, 
and its secret anti-foreign and war policies. And that to hide 
these political crimes, they still continue the employment of 
fraud, falsehood, and deceit, will be shown in the following 
chapter. 


CHAPTER III. 

JAPAN’S CONSTITUTION A POLITICAL FRAUD, 
AND MEANS TO FURTHER THE GOVERN¬ 
MENT’S SECRET WAR POLICIES. 

1. THE GOVERNMENT MAKES JAPAN A MILITARY 
AND NAVAL POWER 

After the settlement made with the Samurai of the dis¬ 
solved clans, the anti-foreign agitation gradually died out. 
The pensions which they received were sufficient to keep 
them out of an agitation which, as they had already learned, 
was not favored by the secret rulers. The latter thus be¬ 
came enabled to carry out the preparations for their future 
war policy by making Japan, with the aid of imported in¬ 
structors from Europe and America, a modern military and 
naval power. That this was the government’s aim, in favor 
of which Japan’s industry and commerce had to be grossly 
neglected, is told by the “Eminent Japanese Authorities” in 
their publication of 1904, when describing the martial spirit 
exhibited by the common people after the introduction of 
the conscription system : 

“Five years after the demise of feudalism in 1871, 
the government demonstrated in the Satsuma rebellion 
that it had been able to organize an army after Western 
models, and that its officers could conduct a campaign 
in accordance with the rules of Western strategy and 
tactics. Seventeen years later (in 1894) Japan, entering 
the field against China, furnished a conclusive proof of 
the excellence of her military organization. 

“Whatever allowance be made on account of the 
splendid material furnished by the Samurai class for 
officering an army and navy, the general fact remains 
that the Japanese, using the plebeian classes for rank 
and file, have carried the two services to a state of the 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 179 

highest organization, and have proved that they can 
assimilate not merely the forms, but also the spirit of 
foreign systems. On the other hand, a visit to their 
factories shows machinery treated carelessly, employes 
so numerous that they impede rather than expedite busi¬ 
ness, and a general lack of the precision, regularity, and 
earnestness that characterizes successful industrial enter¬ 
prises in Europe or America.” 

That statement is a proud boast that Japan’s army and 
navy had, in 23 years, been brought to a state of perfection 
according to Western modern systems. But it is also an 
undeniable admission that, in 1904, nearly forty years after 
the establishment of the present government, Japan’s indus¬ 
trial interests were badly neglected by the Ruling Powers, 
as was also, as shown before, the agricultural business. 
What was the cause of that neglect? America and Europe 
would just as readily have supplied Japan with industrial 
managers and agricultural experts as with military and 
naval instructors, civil and mechanical engineers, electri¬ 
cians, physicians, and teachers for their schools and univer¬ 
sities. But the government did not plan that Japan should 
prosper, as all civilized people endeavor to do, from peace¬ 
ful pursuits of life, but by war and conquest, according to 
the secret anti-foreign policy adopted in 1869; an assertion 
which is fully proved by the history of Japan since that time. 


2. SATSUMA AND CHOSHIU SAMURAI CONTROL THE 
GOVERNMENT 

Although the clans had been dissolved, the clannish feel¬ 
ing of the population had not been eradicated, but was as 
strong as ever among the military class. The Satsuma and 
Choshiu Samurai were notorious for their clannish spirit, and 
those of them who had been leaders in the deposition of the 
Shogun and capture of the government were, therefore, de- 


180 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


termined to keep the supreme power in their hands and fill 
the administrative offices with their clansmen. With this pur¬ 
pose in view they schemed continually to obtain the sole con¬ 
trol of the Board of Advisers, although that was contrary 
to the original plan adopted, in April, ’68, regarding the man¬ 
agement of the new government. At that time the Samurai 
who had possession of the government needed all the friends 
they could get; and to convince the leaders of other clans 
that they did not intend to let a few men or clans monopo¬ 
lize the ruling power, they brought the boy-Mikado before 
an assembly of Court nobles, Daimyo and Samurai, and made 
him swear “that he would cause a deliberative Assembly to 
be formed, in which all matters could be decided by public 
opinion.” 

Although this was a vague promise, the leading Samurai 
knew what it meant. As educated men, they were aware 
of the condition of the Mikado, and the necessity of some¬ 
body ruling for him. The general understanding was, at 
that time, that the military class were to take the place of 
the Shogun, and that representatives of all the clans were 
to form an Assembly which would have the control over all 
the administrative departments and the officials of the gov¬ 
ernment, including the “Imperial Advisers” and Cabinet min¬ 
isters. This Assembly would really be an Oligarchy whose 
members were representatives of the Samurai of all the clans, 
but to the people it would appear as the parliamentary body 
of a constitutional government. 

But the Satsuma and Choshiu members of the Board of 
Advisers carried on their scheme to monopolize the supreme 
power so successfully that, before the leaders of the other 
clans could prevent it, the “Restoration Statesmen” of Sat¬ 
suma and Choshiu were in full control of the “Privy Council,” 
as the “Advisers” were called after 1879, and as such ruled 
the country in the Mikado’s name. They were secure in that 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 181 

position, because they had the support of the army and navy 
officers, and the multitude of their clansmen who filled admin¬ 
istrative offices throughout the country. But the disregarded 
Samurai from the other clans did not submit tamely to this 
change; they raised the cry for “the deliberative Assembly” 
that had been promised in ’68, and commenced an agitation 
which threatened serious trouble in the Satsuma-Choshiu 
Privy Council. In 78 Count Itagaki, a former Samurai, 
organized a party called the “Liberals”, and another Samu¬ 
rai, Count Okuma, formed, in ’81, the Progressive party, 
both of which had the same purpose of putting an end to 
the Satsuma and Choshiu men’s monopoly of the supreme 
power in the Privy Council. The “Eminent Japanese 
Authorities” picture in their book the situation as follows: 

“The two here mentioned parties, Liberals and Pro¬ 
gressives, are the only associations of the kind that need 
be seriously considered by the student. Cabals have 
been formed within their ranks and independent coteries 
outside, the occasional result being a welter of factions, 
bewildering and disheartening. But such things repre¬ 
sent the incidental struggles of the moment, not the 
guiding principles of the era. Officialdom stood arrayed 
against the parties; officialdom under the leadership of 
the Restoration statesmen, with whom were allied the 
navy, officered chiefly by Satsuma men, and the army, 
officered chiefly by Choshiu men. On one side two strong 
bodies of political agitators to obtain the practical ful¬ 
filment of the Emperor’s promise; on the other, the Sat¬ 
suma-Choshiu holders of office and all their official fol¬ 
lowers, struggling to postpone that consummation,— 
such was the spectacle presented to the nation. It might 
easily have become a dangerous spectacle, but the gov¬ 
ernment paralyzed its elements of commotion by pro¬ 
claiming, in 1881, that a Constitution should be issued in 
1890, and a Diet convened in 1891. Thenceforth the 
parties could only w r ait.” 

The “Japanese Authorities” do not mention the Emperor 


182 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

as a factor in this fight at all, although if he really had been 
the Sovereign, he could have settled the difficulty at once by 
discharging some of the objectionable “Advisers” and ap¬ 
pointing others from the neglected clans. For, according to 
the old Constitution of ’68, as well as of the later one of 
’90, the Emperor had to appoint the members of the Privy 
Council. But, as has been shown before, he had no power 
at all. He was the impotent sacerdotal “Head” of the Shinto 
Cult, and, consequently, could do nothing about the member¬ 
ship of the Privy Council whose members ruled him and 
settled their fight with the other clans as they saw fit. They 
published, in ’90, the promised Constitution in the official 
press, together with the statement that it had been granted 
by his Majesty, the Emperor, in accordance with his promise 
given in ’68. The new supreme law of Japan limited the 
right to vote and be eligible to office to 460,000 citizens out 
of 16 million males of the proper age, and created a “Diet” 
of two Houses, the lower one composed of 300 Representa¬ 
tives, and the House of Peers consisting of noblemen of cer¬ 
tain rank and of men appointed specially by the Emperor. 
The “Eminent Japanese Authorities” describe the advent of 
the Constitution as follows: 

“No incident in Japan’s modern career was watched 
with more curiosity than this sudden plunge into par¬ 
liamentary institutions. The convening of a Diet and the 
sudden transfer of financial and legislative authority from 
the Throne, and an Oligarchy of tried statesmen grouped 
around it, to the hands of men whose qualifications for 
public life rested on the verdict of electors, themselves 
apparently devoid of all light to guide their choice,— 
this sweeping innovation seemed likely to tax severely, 
if not over-tax completely, the progressive capacities of 
the nation. What enhanced the interest of the situation 
was that the Oligarchs who held the administrative 
power had taken no pains to win a following in the 
political field. Knowing that the opening of the Diet 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


183 


would be a veritable letting loose of the dogs of war, 
and unmuzzling of the agitators whose mouths had hith¬ 
erto been closed by legal restrictions upon free speech, 
but who would now enjoy complete immunity, whatever 
the nature of their utterances within the walls of the 
Assembly—foreseeing all this, the statesmen of the day 
nevertheless stood serenely aloof from alliances of all 
kinds, and discharged their administrative functions with 
apparent indifference. That somewhat inexplicable dis¬ 
play of unconcern became partially intelligible when the 
Constitution was promulgated; for it then appeared that 
the Cabinet’s tenure of office was to depend solely on the 
Emperor’s will; that ministers were to take their mandate 
from the Throne, not from Parliament.” 

The evident purpose of the Constitution was that the 
Diet should have no right to interfere in the administrative 
affairs of the country, and that, therefore, the Cabinet minis¬ 
ters were not to be responsible to the Diet, but to the Throne, 
which meant the Privy Council, the five Samurai Advisers of 
the Emperor, whom the “Eminent Japanese Authorities” call, 
very properly, the “Oligarchs” . Count Ito, a Choshiu Samu¬ 
rai, was the author of the Constitution; and he had taken 
care to shape the highest law of the land so that his friends 
of the Satsuma and Choshiu clans in the Privy Council were 
made the secret, but non the less absolute, rulers of Japan, 
while their antagonists were rendered powerless. They knew 
that the Emperor was an helpless figure-head who could ap¬ 
point nobody, and that his Privy Councilors appointed them¬ 
selves, as they had done since 1868. But that knowledge 
was useless to the opposition. Nobody could have tried to 
expose the fraud upon which the whole government had 
been built, without being immediately decapitated for trea¬ 
son by the Ruling Powers, or murdered by the superstitious 
people who would believe nothing that might be said 
against their “divine” Sovereign. The defeated Samurai, 
therefore, tried every other possible means to break up the 


184 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


Satsuma-Choshiu Oligarchy by overruling it in the Diet. But 
it was a vain effort, as is graphically described by the “Emi¬ 
nent Japanese Authorities.” They say in their book: 

“The agitators had obtained a Constitution and a 
Diet, but they had not obtained an instrument for pull¬ 
ing down the 'clan’ administrators, since these stood 
secure from attack under the aegis of the Sovereign's 
mandate. They dared not raise their voices against the 
unfettered exercise of the Emperors prerogative. The 
nation, loyal to the core, would not have suffered such 
procedure, nor could the agitators themselves have found 
heart to adopt it. But they could read their own inter¬ 
pretation into the text of the Constitution, and they 
could demonstrate practically that a Cabinet not acknowl¬ 
edging responsibility to the legislature was virtually 
impotent for law-making purposes. 

“These are the broad outlines of the contest that 
began in the first session of the Diet, and has continued 
ever since. The struggle presented varying aspects at 
different times, but the fundamental question at issue has 
never changed. Obstruction was the weapon of the 
political parties. They sought to render legislation and 
finance impossible for any ministry that refused to take 
its mandate from the majority in the Lower House, and 
they imparted an air of respectability and even patriot¬ 
ism by making ‘anti-clannism’ their war cry, and indus¬ 
triously fostered the idea that the struggle lay between 
administration guided by public opinion and administra¬ 
tion controlled by a clique of clansmen—Satsuma and 
Choshiu—who stood between the Throne and the nation. 
There could be no doubt about the ultimate success of 
such tactics. At first the government showed a very 
resolute front. For five years it ignored the hostility of 
the Lower House and held by the constitutional prin¬ 
ciple of responsibility to the Emperor only. In vain the 
opposition threw out the budget, passed votes of want 
of confidence, or submitted to the Throne addresses 
impeaching the ministry. The Cabinet remained impas¬ 
sive, looking down from its high place on the tumult 
raging below. 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


185 


“It must be confessed that there was something at 
once sad and impressive in the spectacle. The ‘Restora¬ 
tion Statesmen’ were the men who had made modern 
Japan; the men who had raised her, in the face of im¬ 
mense obstacles, from the position of an insignificant 
Oriental state to that of a formidable unit in the comity 
of nations; the men, finally, who had given to her a 
Constitution and representative institutions. Yet these 
men were now fiercely attacked by the arms that they 
had themselves nerved, were held up to public obloquy 
as self-seeking usurpers, and were declared to be imped¬ 
ing the people’s constitutional route to administrative 
privileges. 

“There is no doubt that the leaders on both sides 
understood the situation accurately. The heads of the 
opposition parties, while they publicly clamored for par¬ 
liamentary Cabinets, privately confessed that they were 
not prepared to assume administrative responsibilities, 
and the so-called ‘clan-statesmen’, while they refused 
before the world to accept the Diet’s mandates, admitted 
within official circles that the question was one of time 
only. It is well to note this mutual understanding; for 
its existence indicates that the contest must be peaceful 
throughout.” 

It is stated also by the same authors that, notwithstand¬ 
ing the hostile agitation of the two parties of Itagaki and 
Okuma, the government obtained the passage of its bills 
without any difficulty and with a celerity unknown in West¬ 
ern representative bodies. The authors ascribe this to the 
natural ability of the Japanese, stating that “they think on 
their feet,” and relate that, for instance, in the session of 
’96 to ’97 in 32 meetings of the Diet, lasting altogether 116 
hours, no less than 55 bills were debated and passed, all, but 
three, public measures, and some of them of prime import¬ 
ance, as the gold standard bill, the yearly budget, the statu¬ 
tory tariff, and others. Every bill is referred to a commit¬ 
tee whose recommendation is adopted by the Diet in 99 out 


186 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


of 100 cases. According to Western ideas, the celerity is 
not due to the fact that the committee-members “think on 
their feet”, but to the artful manner in which the govern¬ 
ment knows, by official favors, to obtain the support of the 
committees of the Lower House. With the House of Peers 
that was not necessary, because it had been created for the 
purpose of standing by the government, and never yet failed 
to perform that duty. 

The statements quoted from the publication of the “Emi¬ 
nent Japanese Authorities ” confirm almost everything that 
has been said hereinbefore about the form of the Japanese 
government. They acknowledge that the Samurai of Sat- 
suma, Choshiu and other clans have , in 1868 , abolished the 
Shogunate and established the government. They state that 
the latter is an Oligarchy formed by Samurai from Satsuma 
and Choshiu. They proudly boast that these are the men 
who have made Japan, the insignificant Asiatic country, one 
of the world’s great powers. And they admit that this 
Samurai Oligarchy, composed of the members of the Privy 
Council, stands under the protection of the Imperial name 
and is, therefore, not under the control of the Diet nor 
responsible to it. They further freely acknowledge that the 
army and navy stand behind the Oligarchs, because both 
services are officered by Samurai from the same clans to 
which the members of the Privy Council originally belonged. 

The statement made by the same authors that the agi¬ 
tators did not dare raise their voices against the “unfettered 
prerogative of the Emperor” to appoint the ministers of the 
Cabinet and hold them responsible to him alone, is only 
partly true. They could not be expected to tell the truth on 
that subject. The truth about the condition of the Emperor 
and his subordinate position in the government cannot be 
told in Japan. The whole government would fall to pieces, 
the fanatical loyalty of the people disappear, and a bloody 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


18 7 


revolution put an end to the Imperial House and its fol¬ 
lowers, if it were made known to the people that the Samu¬ 
rai Oligarchy which has possession of the Emperor’s person, 
rules him and the people. That is the reason why Itagaki, 
Okuma, and the agitators who form their parties, did not 
dare assail the so-called “prerogative of the Emperor”, but 
are waiting until the ruling Oligarchy sees the necessity of 
amending the Constitution so as to give other clans, besides 
Satsuma and Choshiu, a representation in the Privy Council. 


3. THE CONSTITUTION A MASTERPIECE OF SAMURAI 
CUNNING 

The Oligarchs had several purposes in view for which 
they intended that the Constitution should serve them. They 
therefore engaged, for the drafting of the important docu¬ 
ment, Count Ito, the Choshiu Samurai who had on many 
occasions already shown his skill as a political schemer. Nor 
did he disappoint his friends of the Privy Council. He made 
the Constitution a perfect means for all their different pur¬ 
poses. It was adopted and promulgated in 1890. It has 
already been shown by quotations from the “Eminent Jap¬ 
anese Authorities” that it perpetuated the members of the 
Privy Council, the Satsuma-Choshiu Samurai, in the posses¬ 
sion of the supreme power, and thereby gave them the 
rights, privileges, and means they needed to carry out their 
secret war and conquest policy. And to cap the climax of 
Samurai cunning, the Constitution met with the greatest 
approbation on the part of the very people of Japan and 
throughout the civilized world, whom it most thoroughly 
deceived and promised to injure. It is worth while to con¬ 
sider, in detail, this masterpiece of Samurai deceitfulness, 
because it endorses what has hereinbefore been said about 
the character of the men who rule Japan, and gives an in- 


188 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


sight into the means they employ in their political work. 

The Constitution as adopted by the Diet, as “the free 
and voluntary gift of His Majesty”, as the official announce¬ 
ment read, can be found in the encyclopediae of the West¬ 
ern nations. It contains 76 articles, many of which are indefi¬ 
nite and refer to future parliamentary action, which gives 
the document the appearance of being the expression of 
constitutional modern government. The Japanese press, in 
the native and English language, endorsed it, and the com¬ 
mon people became frantic with joy over their new political 
achievement. The Japanese Representatives abroad seemed 
highly elated over the great advance their people were evi¬ 
dently making toward becoming a modern nation. Copies of 
the Constitution were shown to foreign statesmen, among 
others to the Hon. Tames G. Blaine, who expressed a fav¬ 
orable opinion of it, which was published in American and 
Japanese newspapers. The American and European press 
was filled with the reports of interviews with Japanese 
ambassadors, in which the latter praised, in the highest 
degree, the progressiveness of their people, and the liberality 
and sagacious statesmanship of their “Emperor”, as the 
Mikado was called in the official translation of the Consti¬ 
tution, to show that he had become a modern Ruler even in 
his title. 

But the peoples and governments of America and 
Europe were not so much influenced in their opinion of 
Japan’s political progress by the enthusiasm of the Japan¬ 
ese statesmen, as by an article of the Constitution granting 
their people religious freedom, and more yet by certain 
omissions from that document which seemed to indicate that 
the Japanese had abandoned their ancient religious supersti¬ 
tions, and were accepting the Western civilization. For the 
Constitution did not contain a word about the Shinto Cult 
which had formed the basis of the Japanese civilization since 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 189 

the seventh century A. D., and been made the state religion 
in the new government in 1868. Nor was the divinity of 
the Emperor proclaimed in the new supreme law. It simply 
called him “sacred and inviolable”, attributes which could 
not by any distortion be made to mean that he were divine 
and would, after his death, become one of the mighty Gods- 
of the Heavens, like his ancestors, as the Shinto Cult is 
teaching. 

These remarkable omissions were taken by the civilized 
world as proof that the Emperor had, after his accession to 
the throne, received an high modern education which had 
caused him to emancipate himself from the superstitions of 
the Shinto Cult, to abolish it as the state religion, to abandon 
the devotions of the ancestor worship, and to have become 
an enlightened statesman whose liberality in giving his people 
a constitutional government, although his own political 
powers were thereby lessened, entitled him to the respect of 
all mankind. This opinion has been held by the civilized 
nations of the world ever since, and was voiced by their 
newspapers almost unanimously, in 1912, after the death 
of the Emperor, at whose obsequies foreign Princes and 
statesmen honored him and his government. 

Count Ito had traveled in foreign countries, and was 
well aware of the influence it would have upon the foreign 
nations if they learned that the Emperor had established 
religious liberty in Japan, and abolished the Shinto Cult 
with its political superstitions. But he also knew that what 
would elevate the Emperor in the opinion of the Western 
peoples would have quite a different effect in Japan. There 
the omission of the Shinto Cult from the law of the land, and 
the granting of religious freedom to Christians and others, 
would have done violence to the most sacred feelings of 
every man, woman and child, and could not be expected to 
be accepted by them as anything but a deliberate sacriligious 


190 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


insult. Count Ito knew all that, and had provided a means 
by which the Constitution worked satisfactorily in Japan as 
well as in the foreign countries. He left Article 27, which 
granted religious liberty, unchanged, but at the very end of 
the Constitution he added, under the heading of “Supple¬ 
mentary Rules”, Article 76, which reads: 

“Existing legal enactments, such as laws, regula¬ 
tions, ordinances, and, by whatever names they may be 
called, shall so far as they do not conflict with the pres¬ 
ent Constitution, continue in force.” 

No foreigner, unless he had been informed about the 
first acts of the government established in 1868, could have 
suspected that this seemingly unimportant Article 76 was, in 
fact, the most important one of the whole Constitution. It 
was at the end of that document, where it might not be 
noticed by the foreign readers. But the Samurai Rulers let 
it be known throughout the country, through the priests and 
the teachers, that Article 76 of the Constitution established 
the Shinto Cult as the state religion with the Emperor as ifs 
“Head”. The Consitution of 1868 had done so, and as that 
part of the supreme law had never been repealed, it remained 
in force, without the word Shinto having been mentioned 
in the whole new Constitution. The foreigners did not 
imagine that the Japanese government would use such deceit, 
and believed, generally, that Japan was abolishing her old 
superstitions. And the highest Japanese officials and authors 
who represent tlie government, till this day adhere to the 
story that Japan has no state religion, and claim that only the 
Imperial House, especially the Emperor, is bound to observe 
the rites and devotions of the Shinto Cult. They evidently 
forget that Article 76 plainly endorses every law of the old 
Constitution of ’68, which has not been repealed, and the 
official records of the Foreign Representatives bear witness 
to the fact that such a repeal has never been made. There 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


191 


is the best evidence, though, of the existence of a state 
religion in the Japanese schools. Every day the teachers 
must read to the children the “Imperial Rescript on Educa- 
tion”, which was promulgated on the same day with the 
Constitution of 1890, and which exhorts the children, 

“ever to be Strictly obedient to the Constitution, and 
to adhere to the approved customs and manners of their 
ancestors, to which the Emperor and his subjects are 
sacredly bound, and which, having been of unfailing 
validity in all past ages, will also be so in the present 
time.” 

By this constant teaching all the children are made firm 
believers in the divinity of the Emperor and the Imperial 
ancestors, which is the principal doctrine of the Shinto Cult. 
As a natural consequence, Shintoism has never before been 
more universally and fanatically upheld in Japan than since 
the promulgation of the Constitution of 1890, so that Mr. 
Alfred Stead, the before mentioned English author of several 
books on Japan, could, in 1906, truthfully write: 

“It may be said without exaggeration that every 
Japanese man, every Japanese woman, and every Jap¬ 
anese child is an ancestor worshipper. This applies to 
the Christian convert equally with the Buddhist devotee.” 

When, notwithstanding all this proof of the existence of 
a daily taught state religion, denial that it exists is publicly 
made by Japanese officials at home and abroad, it is simply 
a proof that the proverbial “Philosophy of Falsehood’’ rules 
supremely in Japan. But other evidence will yet the intro¬ 
duced showing how carefully Count Ito has framed the Con¬ 
stitution so as to make it prevent the teaching of any other 
religion in Japan, zvhenever the government chooses to do so. 


192 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


4. THE ORIGINAL CONSTITUTION NOT THE LEGAL 
ONE 

The many other deceits in the Constitution can be intro¬ 
duced together by the statement that the generally knozvn 
document is not the Constitution at all. An almost incredible 
assertion, but strictly true. Under the pretense that in for¬ 
eign countries, both in America and Europe, often doubts 
prevail about the meaning of their fundamental laws, Count 
Ito wrote, at the same time when he framed the new Con¬ 
stitution, an “Interpretation” of it, which was accepted by 
the Emperor as the true meaning of the original document. 
That acceptance superseded the new Constitution, and made 
the “Interpretation” the law of the land, by which the gov¬ 
ernment, the Diet, and the courts are guided. But the “In¬ 
terpretation” hardly deserves that name, for it has changed 
several important articles, or added to them in such a way 
that they are the opposite of the original Constitution. This 
was done to enable the government to satisfy both their own 
people and the foreign nations, if the two had decidedly 
different opinions. For this purpose the original Constitu¬ 
tion was with great ingenuity made to suit the political ideas 
of the West, and the “Interpretation” to please the Japanese. 
But in both documents there are articles so constructed that 
the foreigners as well as the natives can be deceived through 
them by the ruling Oligarchs, if their interests demand it. 

The “Interpretation” is not known any more under that 
name; it gradually became disagreeable to the government 
to have it known that there were two Constitutions; and, 
principally to deceive the foreigners, the “Interpretation” 
is now published only under the title of “Hirobumi Ito’s 
Commentaries”. Even foreign authors were influenced to 
adopt this appellation. Thus in the book, “Japan Today”, by 
Mr. Alfred Stead, it is stated that the “Interpretation” is the 
legal Constitution because the Emperor has accepted it as 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 193 

his meaning of the original one. But in “Great Japan”, a 
later publication by the same author, who, in the meantime, 
had become a favorite of the government, the “Interpreta¬ 
tion” is only referred to as “Count Ito’s Commentaries”, 
without it being mentioned that these “Commentaries” are, 
in fact, Japan’s legal Constitution. The fraud perpetrated 
in both these documents becomes evident when the cor¬ 
responding articles are compared. 

Article 3 of the original Constitution reads thus: 

“The Emperor is sacred and inviolable.” 

Article 28, which promises religious freedom, says: 

“The Japanese subjects shall enjoy religious free¬ 
dom within limits not prejudicial to peace and order, and 
not antagonistic to their duties as citizens.” 

But Articles 3 and 28 of the “Interpretation” render 
religious freedom in Japan impossible. Article 3 reads: 

“The Emperor is Heaven-born, divine, and sacred. 
He is pre-eminent above all his subjects. He has, indeed, 
to respect the law, but the law has no power to hold him 
accountable to it. Not only shall there be no irreverence 
to the Emperor, but he shall not be made a topic of 
derogatory comment, nor one of discussion.” 

This interpreted meaning of Article 3 makes the 
Emperor a God who is not accountable to any law for any¬ 
thing he may do. It imposes the belief in his divinity upon 
every Japanese as a legal obligation which to violate is a 
crime. It makes every person, native or foreign, who teaches 
the Christian, Hebrew, or Mohammedan faith, that there is 
only one invisible God, and that the Japanese Emperor is a 
human being, a criminal who can be severely punished and 
banished from the country, if he is not a native. It forbids 
a Christian minister to teach his congregation, or a Christian 
father to teach his wife or child, the first of the Ten Com¬ 
mandments, under penalty of the law. And it makes any 
conversations about the divinity or non-divinity of the 


194 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

Emperor between any two or more people, young or old, 
whether Christians, Buddhists, or even Shintoists, foreigners 
or natives, an offense against the supreme law of the country. 
It is evident that the religious freedom promised in Article 
28 of the original Constitution cannot exist in Japan under 
Article 3 of the “Interpretation”. And the interpreted Arti¬ 
cle 28 has the same effect. It reads: 

“Belief and conviction are the operations of the 
mind. As to form of worship, to religious discourses, to 
the modes of propagating a religion, and to the forma¬ 
tion of religious associations, some general legal and 
police restrictions must be observed for the maintenance 
of public peace and order. Thus, although freedom of 
religious belief is complete and exempt from all restric¬ 
tions as long as manifestations of it are confined to the 
mind, yet with regard to external matters, such as forms 
of worship and the mode of propagandism, certain neces¬ 
sary restrictions of law or regulations must be provided 
for, and besides, the general duties of subjects must be 
observed. This is what the Constitution decrees.” 

A more absurd travesty upon religious freedom has per¬ 
haps never been enacted. For in plain language, this inter¬ 
pretation of Art. 28 ordains that a Japanese subject may 
become an adherent to any religion, but only in his mind. 
He must not manifest his belief externally, by word or action 
in his or any other person’s home or in a church. That 
law ignores the fact that religions have been established at all 
times and places for the purpose of making their followers 
do and say what the religions teach them; from which it 
follows that if .a person be not allowed to profess his faith 
and live up to it, he has no religious freedom. 

If the “Interpretation” of Articles 3 and 28 had been 
put into the original Constitution, the whole civilized world 
would have perceived that Japan’s government is not based 
upon modern liberal ideas, but upon the fanaticism of Old 
Japan, which eradicated Christianity by burning, crucifying, 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


195 


and torturing to death native and foreign men and woman 
by the hundred thousand, only a few centuries ago. It 
is true that these articles have not been enforced to the full 
meaning of the law, because Japan is not prepared yet to do 
so. But when her government is ready, Articles 3 and 28 of 
the Interpretation of the Constitution will certainly be used 
to forbid any religious teaching that does not accept the 
main doctrines of Shintoism, the state religion, viz.: the 
divinity of the Emperor and the ancestor worship; as Bud- 
dhaism and Confucianism have already done under the preu 
sure of the present government, soon after its establishment. 
And there are signs’ that strong influences already work 
among the native Christians to cause them to dispense with 
their foreign teachers and ministers, and create a “national” 
Christian Church, “Japanized” to suit the popular supersti¬ 
tions. In his book, “Great Japan”, Mr. Stead quotes an 
English Episcopalian theologian who has charge of a Semi¬ 
nary of his denomination in Japan, as follows: 

“The Japanese Christians desire to organize a na¬ 
tional union upon a liberal basis. They want it to be 
different from all other churches,—unique and peculiar 
to their own country. They propose to have a creed 
embodying such truths as they consider agreeable to the 
tastes of their own people in religion.” 


5. THE CONSTITUTION CREATES NO POPULAR 
GOVERNMENT 

Regarding the religious question the Constitution has 
deceived only the foreign people, but regarding its govern¬ 
ment it deceived everybody but the aristocratic and Samurai 
class. It has already been shown by the quotations from the 
Japanese publication, “Japan”, that the Privy Council Oli¬ 
garchs rule supremely, notwithstanding the efforts of the 
Liberal and Progressive Parties to control the government 


196 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


through the Diet. The powers given to the latter in the 
original Constitution were taken away in the “Interpreta¬ 
tion”. But it is not necessary to dwell on that subject. It 
is indispensable, though, to show what the Ruling Powers 
who, in 1868, made the boy-Mikado take a sacred oath that 
a popular government should be established, really did estab¬ 
lish in 1890 with the assistance of the Diet and under the 
new Constitution. In February, 1890, on the birthday of 
Jimmu Tenno, the founder of the Empire, when the Consti¬ 
tution was promulgated, the Emperor took the following 
second oath in the palace chapel: 

“We, the successor to the prosperous throne of our 
predecessors, do, humbly and solemnly, swear to the 
Imperial founder of the House, and to our other Im¬ 
perial ancestors, that, in pursuance of a policy co-ex- 
tensive with the heavens and the earth, we shall maintain 
and secure from decline the ancient form of government.” 

This oath gave a definite pledge instead of the indefinite 
one of ’68, and differed from the latter entirely. According 
to Japanese historians, Khan Yamato Seware, the great Tar¬ 
tar military leader, who conquered Japan in the 7th century 
f>. C., was a soldier and a despot, and as such accepted the 
name of Jimmu Tenno (the Conqueror, or War Spirit). His 
government was a military despotism, and 2550 years later 
his successor, Mutsu Hito, swore that he would “maintain 
and secure from decline that ancient form of government” in 
pursuance of a certain high policy not further described. 
That sounds like an Oriental empty phrase, but Count Ito 
gave an introduction to his “Interpretation” which shows 
that it was earnestly meant by the Privy Council Oligarchs. 
He wrote: 

“The sacred throne of Japan is inherited from 
Imperial ancestors, and it is bequeathed to posterity. In 
it resides the power to reign over and govern the state. 
That express provisions concerning the sovereign power 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


197 


are especially mentioned in the articles of the Consti¬ 
tution in no wise implies that any newly settled opinion 
thereon is set forth by the Constitution. On the con¬ 
trary, the original national policy is, by no means, 
changed by it, but is more strongly confirmed than ever.” 


6. JAPAN’S GOVERNMENT A MILITARY DESPOTISM 

The original Constitution gives the Emperor in the fol¬ 
lowing articles the military powers by which the ancient des¬ 
potism of Jimmu Tenno was to be established: 

“Art. 10. The Emperor determines the organization 
of the different branches of the administration, and the 
salaries of all civil and military officers, and appoints 
and dismisses the same. 

“Art. 11. The Emperor has the supreme command 
of the army and navy. 

“Art. 12. The Emperor determines the organiza¬ 
tion and peace standing of the army and navy. 

“Art. 13. The Emperor declares war, makes peace 
and concludes treaties. 

“Art. 14. The Emperor proclaims a state of siege. 
The ocnditions and effects of a state of siege shall be 
determined by law. 

“Art. 15. The Emperor confers titles of nobility, 
rank, order, and other marks of honor. 

“Art. 16. The Emperor orders amnesty and par¬ 
don, commutation of punishment and rehabilitation.” 

In this case, the "‘Interpretation' does not counteract the 
intentions of the original Constitution, but gives the Emperor 
additional powers. It says: 

“Declarations of war, conclusions - of peace and of 
treaties with foreign countries, are the right of the 
Sovereign, concerning which no consent of the Diet is 
required. 

“The organization and the peace standing of the 
army and navy are determined by the Emperor. This 
power embraces the organization of military divisions 


198 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


and of fleets, and all matters relating to military districts 
and subdistricts; to the storing up and distribution of 
arms; to the education of military and naval men; to 
inspections; to discipline; to guards; to fortifications; to 
naval defences; to naval ports; and to preparations for 
military and naval expeditions. The determining of 
the army and navy also include the fixing of the num¬ 
ber of men to be recruited each year. It is true that 
the Emperor has responsible ministers of state as advis¬ 
ers on these matters. Still, like the Imperial military 
command, it, nevertheless, belongs to the sovereign 
power of the Emperor to manage the whole military and 
naval department, and no interference in it by the Diet 
is allowed 

It must also be mentioned that, some years before the 
adoption of the Constitution, a law had been enacted order¬ 
ing that every able-bodied Japanese, between the ages of 
18 and 40 years, must be a member of either the army or 
navy under the command of such officers as the Emperor 
may appoint. This law, taken in connection with the extraor¬ 
dinary privileges conferred upon the Emperor by the Con¬ 
stitution and its Interpretation, established in modern Japan 
a military despotism which had the same powers as those 
possessed by Jimmu Tenno, the Conqueror, but far surpasses 
his reign in military strength. 

In regard to raising the necessary financial means for 
the national expenses, the Constitution has been so arranged 
as to give the government ample oportunities to dispense 
with the support of the Diet, if necessary. It can obtain the 
needed funds by a loan which the Diet, later on, has to 
legalize in order to maintain the credit of the country. But 
the Ruling Powers prefer to have the Diet pass the budgets 
submitted to it, because they, thereby, shift the responsibility 
for the national expenses upon the House of Representatives, 
which thus becomes, more or less, odious to the people. 

But the government has not only curbed its political 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


199 


adversaries of the Samurai class by the Constitution; it has 
also made it the means of managing the local political affairs 
in a despotic manner. Peculiar election laws, in conjunction 
with severe police regulations, render an expression of the 
wishes and wants of the great masses impossible. No public 
meeting can be held without a permit from the police. No 
club or organization of more than six persons can be formed 
without giving notice at police headquarters, and stating the 
names of the officers and purpose of the organization. At 
elections the voter must show that he has paid his taxes up 
to date, and give his name and address, as well as the name 
of the man he is voting for. This ballot is held in a public 
office where it can be inspected by anybody for sake of curi¬ 
osity, or for other purposes. There is no government in 
existence which claims to be civilized and constitutional, 
that is more despotic than that of Japan, a fact which even 
the most ardent admirers of her people, who know their 
political life, readily admit. So wrote Mr. Alfred Stead, the 
English author, in his book, “Japan Today”, after having 
copied the Constitution and its “Interpretation”: 

“Not even the most arrogant Monarch, the most 
exigent Czar, could ask for greater powers than are 
possessed by the Emperor of Japan.” 

Of course, it was not the Emperor who thus ruled 
Japan with an iron hand, but the Privy Council, a fact which 
the ruling Samurai also tried to hide in the Constitution. 
Article 56 of it mentions that body of “Restoration States¬ 
men” in a manner tending to indicate that they were not of 
any influence or importance. It says: 

“The Privy Council shall, in accordance with the 
provisions of the organization of the Privy Council, 
deliberate upon important matters of state when they 
have been consulted by the Emperor.” 

The “Interpretation” says on this important subject but 
little more, confining itself to the statement that “there shall 


200 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


be five members of the Privy Council, who are to be 
appointed by the Emperor and responsible to him only.” The 
provisions for the organization of the Council were not pub¬ 
lished, and their powers and duties not mentioned in the Con¬ 
stitution or the “Interpretation” which created in the Foreign 
Representatives and governments the belief that the Imperial 
Advisers of the Privy Council were not so important a factor 
as in the government established in 1868. 


7. THE CONSTITUTION DECEIVED FOREIGN 
NATIONS ABOUT JAPAN 

In foreign countries it was, up to 1890, believed that 
there existed “a power behind the throne” in Japan. Ency- 
clopediae and similar books of that time, stated the fact 
without, however, giving details about the secret Rulers. But 
the promulgation of the Constitution without its “Interpre¬ 
tation”, but with its apparent tolerance of foreign religions, 
the seeming abandonment of the Shinto Cult, and the slight¬ 
ing manner in which the Privy Council was mentioned, 
caused in Europe the impression to gain ground that the 
Emperor had really taken charge of the government. In the 
United States there had been, since a few years after the 
establishment of the government in 1868, no suspicion that 
there was any fraud connected with the so-called “Restora¬ 
tion of the supreme power to the Imperial House”. The 
Japanese smile, politeness, and deferential behavior had cap¬ 
tivated the Americans who, in the United States or in Japan, 
had occasion to deal with the “clever little brown men”, and 
created a prejudice in their favor, not only among the peo¬ 
ple, but also in the national government. It was a noble 
feeling of sympathy with a lower race that, apparently, 
endeavored to rise from its semi-savage state. 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


201 


8. THE CONDITION OF THE EMPEROR AND COUNTRY 

IN 1895 

• 

But the Americans’ magnanimous desire to help a people 
struggling to reach a higher civilization was misplaced. In 
fact, they ought to have known better. In 1895 a number of 
the most prominent newspapers in the United States pub¬ 
lished enough of the truth about the Japanese Emperor to 
have convinced their readers that he was not the modern 
Ruler he was claimed to be, and that the Japanese gover¬ 
nment must have been in the hands of some of his subjects. 
But if serious thought were, at that time, given to the mat¬ 
ter, it was sooner or later forgotten. The man who, in 1895, 
came very near exposing the great political fraud of Japan, 
was Mr. W. E. Curtis, an author of note. The publisher of 
the “Chicago Record” had sent him to Japan to “write up” 
the country, the people, the Emperor, the government, and 
everything else which would interest the American people. 
Although Mr. Curtis seems not to have been acquainted with 
the ancient and modern history of the country, and evidently 
had no knowledge of the political fraud underlying the whole 
government, his “Letters About Japan” gave highly impor¬ 
tant information about Japan, which he obtained from high 
Japanese officials, because the Americans were, at the time 
of his visit shortly after the war with China, held in higher 
esteem than any other white race people. He was taken 
through the Imperial palaces, and learned from the “house¬ 
hold officials” the details about the life and doings of the 
Emperor and his family, which he related in his “Letters.” 

In return for the complimentary manner in which he 
was treated, he called himself in his writings an admirer of 
the Japanese people. It was not to be expected that govern¬ 
ment officials would betray to him their political secrets; 
neither would they tell him anything detrimental to the 


202 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


Emperor. It may be mentioned that in 1895 the latter was 
42 years old. Mr. Curtis wrote: 

“There are several palaces in different parts of the 
country belonging to the Imperial family, but the Em¬ 
peror seldom leaves the one at Tokyo, built in 1888, 
which consists of a labyrinth of one-story buildings, 
built upon uneven ground and separated by long, covered 
corridors that may be cut away in case of fire. The 
Emperor has a suite of private apartments, consisting 
of libraries, studies, smoking and dressing rooms, which 
are furnished in the Japanese style with unpainted wood¬ 
work, paper windows, and sliding screens; but the floors 
are covered with moquette carpets, and the furniture 
was all imported from France. He also has a fire-place, 
the only one in the palace, in which pine-wood is burned; 
but his sleeping room is the same unventilated, unlighted, 
and unattractive closet that his ancestors used. It stands 
in the center of a group of nine rooms which are alzvays 
occupied at night by his bodyguard, so that the Imperial 
person cannot be approached in any direction zvithout an 
alarm being given. There are nine square apartments, 
as shown in the accompanying diagram. 






Bed 






“The Emperor’s French bed is erected in the cen¬ 
tral room. The guards in the other rooms are specially 
selected for their bravery and fidelity, and are descend¬ 
ants of those who performed a similar duty for pre¬ 
vious Sovereigns. 







The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


203 


“The Emperor is not unmindful of his divine origin, 
but he has shown himself to be more of a human per¬ 
sonality than his predecessors. He is of a serious tem¬ 
perament, and lacks social qualities. 

“The private affairs of the Emperor are managed 
by the minister of household. It takes a great many 
men and a great deal of money to look after the wel¬ 
fare of the Mikado; but most of their time is taken up 
by the almost ceaseless ceremony that has been inherited 
from ancient time. Occasionally they lop off a non¬ 
sensical formality that was introduced to gratify the 
vanity of some Prince, or please some Mikado, but there 
is still plenty of it left, and between the devotions he 
pays the dead, and the devotions he receives from the 
living, Mutsu Hito has a pretty busy time. He is the 
one hundred and twenty-second Emperor of his line, and 
each of his predecessors has a birthday and some other 
anniversaries upon which his memory must be honored 
by worshipping before tablets that bear his name and 
important statistical information. 

“The tablet often bears ornaments of gold, but 
is usually covered with plain lacquer, and the necessary 
lettering in gold. Every Emperor who dies is given a 
posthumous name under which he is deified, and it 
usually has reference to some of his achievements while 
living. 

“A bureau of ritual composed of ten laymen and a 
number of Shinto priests assists the Emperor in his 
religious duties. When the birthday of some ancestor 
arrives, his tablets are brought out from the handsome 
lacquer boxes and brocade wrappings in which they 
are preserved, and placed upon a shrine in the palace 
with bowls of rice and flowers appropriate to the sea¬ 
son, foliage plants, and other ornaments that belong 
to the outfit of the particular person who is to be wor¬ 
shipped. At a certain hour in the day, with great pomp 
and ceremony, the Emperor appears at the head of a 
procession of Princes and priests, and prays for the 
assistance and blessing of that particular ancestor who 
has been deified and nozv lives among the Gods, able to 


204 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

exercise an influence for good or evil over the affairs 
of mortals. 

“If any misfortune overtakes the State, or if any¬ 
thing happens to the Emperor, it is usually attributed to 
his neglect of his religious duties, and those who attend 
to such affairs endeavor to trace back the difficulty to 
the evil influence of some neglected ancestor. 

“As Artemus Ward would have said, Mrs. Mutsu 
Hito is nine in number—one Empress and eight Im¬ 
perial Concubines. The latter seem to be a sort of 
guarantee that there shall be an heir to the throne, as 
their children are recognized as of full standing in the 
royal pedigree, and the present heir apparent is the son 
of one of them. The Emperor's consorts, wife and con¬ 
cubines, are selected for him by the Imperial Council. 
He is supposed to have nothing to say about it himself, 
but has to accept the brides they bring him. 

“The concubines are selected from among the daugh¬ 
ters of the first families of the land because of then 
pure blood, their health, and beauty, and sometimes for 
political reasons. The left-handed wives of the Emperor 
often wield a tremendous political influence, for obvious 
reasons. They live in the greatest luxury, are sur¬ 
rounded by multitudes of attendants, and, except to their 
omission in the Court codes of etliquette, they stand 
equal to the Empress herself. Each has her separate 
suite of apartments, her maids and other attendants, all 
living in a detached building, connected with the Emper¬ 
or’s residence by an arcade. But very little is known of 
their doings. They all might die and be buried and turn 
into dust without the public being any wiser. 

“The Empress has her own establishment, entirely 
separate and distinct, her own officials and stewards, and 
is just as independent of the rest of the royal family as 
if she were alone in the world. The same is true of 
the Empress-dowager, the mother of his Majesty, who 
lives outside the palace grounds in a beautiful chateau. 

“The Emperor was married in January, 1869, when 
barely 16 years old, having been born in November, ’52. 
His wife was 19 years old when they were married. 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


205 


She is the daughter of one of the great feudal Lords 
who was active in the conspiracy and war which caused 
the downfall of Shogun Keiki in 1868 and ’69. She 
discarded the Japanese dress in 1886, and adopted the 
fashioned garments of America and Europe, by order 
of the Council, because, as they claimed, the Mikado's 
wife must set an example to her subjects in introducing 
‘modern improvements’. It was not until the adoption 
of the Constitution in ’90, however, that she appeared 
in public in her Paris gowns, and even now she is said 
to wear the native costume in the privacy of her cham¬ 
bers. She bore the Emperor no children, but he had 
twelve from several of his concubines. The Countess 
Sono was the mother of four, the Countess Chigura and 
the Countess Yamagiwara of three each, Mme. Hashi- 
mato and Mme. Hamuro of one each. All the sons but 
one in the family were born of the Countess Yamagi¬ 
wara, mother of the Prince Imperial. She became a 
concubine in 1875, and is said to be a very able woman, 
although she has little beauty. 

“When the Emperor was not quite 21 years old, in 
1873, two children were born him, one on the 19th day 
of the ninth month and one on the 13th day of the 
eleventh. Both died on the day of their birth. Of the 
other children, one lived 9 months, one 13 and one 14, 
two 18, and one 24 months. Four out of the twelve sur¬ 
vive, the Crown Prince and 3 girls. All the Imperial 
children are troubled with brain and nerve diseases; the 
first Crown Prince died of it. It seems to be inherited. 
These data have been taken from the official directory of 
the Empire. 

“Yoshi Hito, Haru no Miya, the Prince Imperial 
(since July, 1912, Emperor) was born in ’79, and made 
heir to the throne in ’87. Under the Constitution the 
Prince who is to succeed to the throne must be of the 
royal blood, but need not be the Emperor’s own son, nor 
the son of the Empress. In ’92 the Prince, then 13 
years old, was made a lieutenant in the Imperial body¬ 
guards; and at sixteen he was colonel of a fancy regi¬ 
ment. The young Prince has a palace and a full estab- 


206 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


lishment of his own. It is in charge of a grand cham¬ 
berlain and three assistants; the parliament appropriates 
$25,000 a year for its maintenance. The separation from 
his father’s establishment occurred when he was 1$ 
years old, and the organisation is just as distinctive and 
independent as if he were living in another country. For 
several years he attended a school that is kept exclus¬ 
ively for the sons of princes and nobles; but, a year or 
so ago, it was thought that the study was too severe for 
his weak brain, and he has since been under the care of 
a ‘grand master’ or tutor, General Oku, who, with sev¬ 
eral teachers, has charge of his education. 

“The Prince Imperial is almost constantly ill, and 
the object of great anxiety. He is under the care of a 
commission of three or four of the foremost physician* 
of Japan. His trouble is ‘water on the brain.’ His 
head is abnormally large, and, although his intellect is 
bright, and he is in full possession of his mental powers; 
he is peculiarly sensitive to diseases of the brain and 
the nervous system. In fact, he has been under treat¬ 
ment ever since his birth.” 

“When, in ’98, the first Crown Prince died, Prince 
Arisugawa, a second cousin of the Emperor, was, by 
the advice of the Privy Council, adopted by him as his 
son and heir to the throne, but dispossessed again of 
the rank of Crown Prince when Yoshi Hito was born. 

“Besides the father of Arisugawa, who was a son 
of the younger brother of Mutsu Hito, there are seven 
other branches of the Imperial family: Prince Komatsu, 
an uncle of the Emperor, born in 1864; Prince Fushima, 
a cousin of the Emperor; Prince Koto Hito, another 
cousin born in 1865; Prince Akira, an adopted brother 
of the Emperor, was educated in Germany; very little 


Footnote: The Prince was, later on, treated by Dr. Baelz, of Germany, at 
that time employed as Professor of Medicine at the Tokyo University. He 
announced the Prince as cured when the latter was 19 years old. A feu; 
months later the Privy Council selected a wife for him, and he got married- 
Whether they also supplied him with concubines is not known, and difficult 
to ascertain, the Privy Council being very anxious to make the members of the 
Imperial family appear as being highly civilized according to Western ethics. 
The Prince (now Emperor) had, after his recover, never become strong, and 
exhibits a shyness in his deportment ever since, which seems to be a mental 
or physical weakness caused by his disease.—(The Author.) 



The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


20 7 


is known of him; he lives a quiet, exclusive life; Prince 
Yoshihisha, an uncle of the Emperor; Prince Hiroyasu 
and Prince Morimasu, both cousins of the Emperor, 
were educated in Europe. 

“The palace grounds include 26 acres, to which 
strangers are never admitted, except upon the invitation 
of the Sovereign or by a permit from the minister of 
the household, which is exceedingly difficult to obtain. 
There are riding courts, rifle ranges, gymnasiums, groves, 
fish ponds, and other facilities for exercise and 
amusement, but his Majesty seldom utilizes them, for he 
is not fond of sport, and afflicted with rheumatism to an 
extent that often interferes with his movements. He 
has several palaces in different parts of the country 
which he never visits, and magnificent game reserve* 
where he never shoots. There is an Imperial yacht in 
the navy, also, but he never goes to sea. 

“Some years ago he attempted to learn English and 
German, but gave them up as a heavy task. On public 
occasions he wears a heavily frogged and gilded uni¬ 
form as generalissimus of the army, with a sword of 
modern pattern in a golden scabbard, and a hilt loaded 
with diamonds and other jewels.” 

It is a well known fact that many millions of the English 
speaking people have a vocabulary that comprises only 300 
words. It is also generally acknowledged that the English, 
probably on account of its many monosyllables, is the easiest 
language to learn to speak. If the Japanese Emperor had 
memorized 300 English words he could have conducted a light 
conversation and exchanged the customary compliments with 
foreigners whom Monarchs have occasionally to receive. That 
Mutsu Hito was unable to learn those few hundred words, 
proves that his mental faculties were impaired, and abnor¬ 
mally so for a native of Japan whose people are notoriously 
gifted with an extraordinarily good memory, owing to the 
fact that, since more than a thousand years, they have been 
in the habit of memorizing the, exceedingly difficult to be 


208 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


remembered, Chinese ideographs which are used in writing 
the Japanese language. Mr. Curtis who, as a newspaperman, 
took a special interest in this subject, wrote about it in his 
“Letters About Japan” : 

“The Japanese have a phenomenal memory. Be¬ 
fore a child can learn to read, it must memorize 4000 
characters or ideographs. The Jinricksha men, the low¬ 
est class of Coolies, know, by memory, the names and 
addresses of probably 200,000 Japanese householders in 
Tokyo. 

“Children are used to assist the compositor. The 
extraordinary memory of a child compositor is always 
amazing to the stranger in Japan. But the race has 
been trained, by the experience of centuries, to remem¬ 
ber. A Japanese never forgets anything. Every word in 
the language is represented by a different character, and 
there are over 4000 in the ordinary conversational vocab¬ 
ulary. To print the report of a parliamentary debate, no 
less than 10,000 characters are used, which the typeset¬ 
ters must know. For scientific work 14 to 20 thousand 
such characters are employed. 

“The vocabularly of the peasant class is, of course, 
much more limited, and contains perhaps 700 or 800 
words. But to read an ordinary, simple book, one must 
be able to recognize at least 2000.” 


9. UNDENIABLE PROOF THAT PRIVY COUNCIL RULES, 
AND EMPEROR ATTENDS TO SHINTO RITES 

These reports of Mr. Curtis about the Emperor and his 
life, the truth of which cannot be denied, because they have 
been obtained from government officials who, under the minis¬ 
ter of household, have charge of the Emperor and his family, 
corroborate the statements hereinbefore made about the condi¬ 
tion of the Monarch, his heir to the throne, and the Privy 
Council. Mr. Curtis did not draw any conclusions from the 
facts given him by the officials. He simply stated what they 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


209 


told him, and thus, unwittingly and unwillingly, showed that 
the Emperor, instead of ruling his country as an enlightened 
Monarch, according to the Constitution supposed to have been 
granted by him, was, in reality, spending his time in perform¬ 
ing the rites prescribed by the Shinto priests for the ancestor 
worship, in the superstitious belief of thus governing his peo¬ 
ple. That proves that he was certainly not “restored” to the 
supreme power of Jimmu Tenno, the military despot, and the 
other military ancestors, but had been left in the same low 
condition in which the Mikado had been held during the last 
1100 years or more, under the Fujiwara Regents and the 
Shoguns. 

Like his ancestors, he was, in his boyhood age of 16 years, 
supplied with a wife, to whom gradually eight specially 
selected concubines were added, in whose embraces he became 
the same physical and mental imbecile, and left to his children 
the same diseased brain and disordered nervous system which 
he and his ancestors had inherited, since centuries, from their 
progenitors. What physical sufferings all these Mikado must 
have endured in consequence of the licentious living forced 
upon them by their priests and nobles, can only be inferred 
from the fact that Mutsu Hito was, in ’95, when only 42 
years old, wrecked with pain caused, not by rheumatism, as 
the Court nobles told Mr. Curtis, but by the sexual excesses 
into which his nine women had led him by order of the 
Frivy Council. This was, most probably, the reason why, in 
his late years, he became addicted to alcoholic beverages, 
which was, after his death, made known in an accidental 
manner by his chief physician. 

The latter was, after the sensational suicide of General 
Nogi and his wife, subsequent to the Emperor’s death in 
1912, requested by fanatic Japanese that he should follow 
their example of patriotism and commit “Harakiri”. And 
when they seemed to indicate that he might have erred in 


210 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


the medical treatment he had given the Emperor, he made a 
public statement in the newspapers in which he declared that 
there was no reasons existing why he should commit “Hara- 
kiri”, as he had done everything possible to prolong the 
Monarch’s life. But since the latter had, against the advice 
of his physicians to abstain from the use of alcoholic bever¬ 
ages, continued to indulge in them, his life could not be 
saved. 

This statement of the chief Imperial physician leads to 
the belief that the Emperor, suffering from disease since 
many years, and probably unable to read, and to find conso¬ 
lation in elevating study, and having no means of diverting 
his mind from lfis unfortunate condition, brought about by 
his treacherous “Advisers”,—sought relief in the forgetful¬ 
ness accompanying the use of intoxicants, and welcomed 
death. And it is very likely that the Imperial Advisers have; 
made it a rule to remove the Imperial Prince when he is 15 
years old from all parental control, lest he witness the miser¬ 
able end of the Emperor’s life, or be warned by the latter 
against following in his footsteps. 


10. JAPANESE DECEIVED BY SHINTO BELIEF IN 
EMPEROR’S DIVINITY ABOUT GOVERNMENT 

It seems extraordinarily strange that the stupendous 
fraud which forms the basis of the Japanese government 
has never yet been exposed either in Japan or outside of it. 
To the contrary, it has become more firmly established from 
year to year. In Japan, where the Emperor’s lewd life, his 
constant devotions of the ancestor worship, and the man¬ 
agement of the country’s political affairs by the Privy Coun¬ 
cil are well known, the people have become more loyal than 
ever. They attribute everything done to raise Japan’s posi¬ 
tion among the world powers to the “virtue” of their divine 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


211 


Emperor, and praise him, with the greatest enthusiasm, as 
one of the ablest Rulers their country has ever had. This 
seeming inconsistency is easily explained. 

To them the Emperor is, as has been stated before, not 
merely a man of great abilities, a prominent statesman, as 
other men may be; but he is more. His “divinity” makes 
him, as the “Interpretation” of the Constitution says, “pre¬ 
eminent above all his subjects”, which means that he pos¬ 
sesses superior physical and mental powers. An educated 
Japanese interrogated on the subject will compare him to 
Jesus , pointing out that the latter, according to the Christian 
faith, was the “Son of God”, although in human form, and 
during his short life gave many proofs of his supernatural 
powers. Regarding the Privy Council, it is supposed that 
its members are obedient servants of the Emperor, who 
advise him on political affairs, relieve him of the details of 
administrative work, and attend to his and his family’s wants. 
But it is firmly believed that all their work and planning would- 
be unsuccessful without the blessings of the Imperial Ancest¬ 
ors, which can only be obtained by the Emperor through his 
daily devotions of the ancestor worship. That he attends faith¬ 
fully to these spiritual duties is considered to be a fact which 
no Japanese outside of the ruling class will doubt. The fulfill¬ 
ment of these duties form the Emperor’s “virtue”, which expi¬ 
ates any human frailties he may possess, and entitles him to the 
love, gratitude and obedience generally embraced in the 
word “loyalty”, of all his subjects. 


11. OFFICIAL PRESS DECEIVES NATIVES AND 
FOREIGNERS ABOUT EMPEROR’S CONDITION 

And the people are not allowed to forget that the 
Emperor is constantly active in thus governing his people. 
The government uses for that purpose a combination of an 


212 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


ancient Japanese custom with a modern Western art. It has 
been stated hereinbefore that the representatives and officials 
of the Mikado and Daimyo were accustomed to perform all 
their work in the names of their Lords, whether the latter 
knew what was being done or not. The Privy Councilors 
and government officials likewise credit the Emperor with 
all their own actions of a public character, and use the mod¬ 
ern art of newspaper publicity to inform the people of the 
immense public work performed or having been directed 
by their divine Monarch. The older people who were 
acquainted with the ancient custom understood the deceit 
practiced in the so-called “Imperial” announcements in the 
official press, in which every law, rescript, regulation or 
order was published in a manner indicating that everything 
enacted came from the Emperor, and they looked upon such 
publications as a compliment paid His Majesty. But the 
later generations who, from childhood, read these announce¬ 
ments, believe them to be true, and admire their Emperor for 
performing the superhuman task of combining his spiritual 
duties of a divine Ruler and Head of the Shinto Cult with 
the administrative labors of the modern Monarch of a 
great nation. 

The audacity with which Samurai publicists supply their 
people with ridiculously false information to show them that 
the Emperor is the real originator of the present government, 
is astonishing. Thus writes Saburo Shimada, the well known 
parliamentarian and “Liberal” partisan: 

“In the beginning of the year 1868 the Emperor 
ordered a Cabinet to be formed under the premiership 
of Prince Arisugawa, and in January of the following 
year he sent a notification to the foreign envoys to the 
effect that, henceforth, the administration of the country 
would be conducted by him. At the same time he 
addressed an invitation to them to attend an audience to 
be given by him in the following month.” 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


213 


And Count Okuma, who was, as stated before, in 1868 
one of the conspirators who captured the government, and 
therefore well knew the condition of the uneducated, weak- 
minded boy-Mikado, writes in his before-mentioned book: 

“The fact that the Emperor finally took the real 
power into his own hands and unified the whole Empire 
was due in the first place to external pressure, and in 
the next to the historical genius of the people which 
enabled them to absorb the elements of Western civiliza¬ 
tion and adapt themselves to changed circumstances and 
new environments.” 

The falsehood of these and all similar statements regard¬ 
ing any activity of the boy-Mikado in regard to a “Restora¬ 
tion of the supreme power”, is too apparent in view of the 
manner in which the usurping Samurai have created their 
Oligarchical government, to need any further proof. But the 
common people do not know that. And such stories as 
those of Okuma, Shimada, and other Samurai writers are 
therefore readily believed, and not only by ignorant Japanese, 
but also by highly intelligent foreigners, because the latter 
think that the connection of these men with the government 
is a guarantee that they are truthful, while the reverse is 
the case. The “Philosophy of Falsehood” is practiced by no 
class of men more than by the former low-class Samurai who 
now control the government, for in self protection they 
must constantly be on guard to hide the abominable fraud 
upon which they have built it. 


12. ALL FOREIGN NATIONS DECEIVED BY JAPANESE 
PUBLICITY WORK 

♦ 

The main publicity work of the government by which 
the foreign nations were to be deceived about the Japanese 
rulers was, however, not done by Japanese, but by foreign 
journalists and authors. They were made the mouthpieces 


214 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


of the Japanese Rulers who very well knew that foreign 
writers would be more readily believed in Europe and Amer¬ 
ica than Japanese. Mr. Curtis explained how the matter had 
been arranged. In one of his “Letters About Japan” he 
described the foreign press of Tokyo as follows: 

“There are four English dailies published in Yoko¬ 
hama. There is one weekly society paper edited by an 
American. It is bright and entertaining, and given to 
personalities and gossip about the members of the for¬ 
eign colony and distinguished visitors, who buy copies to 
send to their friends at home. 

“The other papers are edited by British subjects, 
and are devoted to British interests. The ‘Japanese Mail’, 
the most important and widely circulated, receives an 
indirect subsidy from the Japanese government in the 
form of a permanent subscription for several thousand 
copies, and is intended to keep the foreign newspapers 
properly informed as to political affairs in the Empire. 
Its editor, Capt. Brinkley, is a retired English army 
officer who has lived many years in Japan, has a Jap¬ 
anese wife, speaks, reads, and writes the language flu¬ 
ently, and is considered the best authority on Japanese 
art among the foreign residents. He has the confidence 
of the ministry, as well as the public, and exercises con¬ 
siderable influence, personally as well as through his 
paper. 

“The other English papers are more or less opposed 
to the policy of the government, and carry on spirited 
debates with the editor of the ‘Mail’. Their circulation 
is limited. Their advertising patronage, which comes 
from the steamship companies and foreign tradesmen, 
enables them to live. 

“I was assured by a prominent official of the Jap¬ 
anese government that a liberal subsidy? similar to that 
given to the ‘Mail’ zvould be paid to assist in sustaining 
a reputable and well edited American newspaper for its 
usefulness in keeping Japanese affairs properly before 
the American people.” 

No American journalist having offered himself for the 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


215 


purpose, the English paper mentioned has, for many years, 
been the main source from which the American and Europ¬ 
ean newspapers obtained their information about Japanese 
political affairs, the Emperor, and the government. 

There can be no doubt that the editor of the “Japanese 
Mail”, in the very beginning of his career as the journalistic 
mouthpiece of the Japanese government, had learned from 
the English Legation officials, how and by whom the new 
government had been created in 1868; and as an educated 
man who, during his sojourn in China, had become ac¬ 
quainted with the arts of Oriental guile and, of course, 
studied the history of Japan, he could not fail to perceive 
that the Emperor was not the Ruler, but ruled by the Samurai 
usurpers, as his ancestors had been, since more than 1000 
years. Nor could the editor be blind to the fact that the 
boy-Mikado was, mentally and physically, ruined through the 
sexual excesses forced upon him through his early marriage 
and the voluptuous concubines his “Advisers” of the Privy 
Council supplied the inexperienced youth with. 

It is hardly believable that an educated white man who, 
as an English army officer, had been accustomed to associate 
with the members of the higher classes of his people, and 
live up to their sense of honor, should have spent not only 
a few years but a lifetime, (from 1869 to 1912), as a menda¬ 
cious journalistic tool hired to deceive all the people of his 
own race in the interest of the Samurai of Japan, who, as 
he well knew, hide under the gloss of deferential politeness 
the savagery, falsehood, and self-conceit of the Mongolian 
Tartars, the deadly enemies of the white race. 

In justice to this “English gentleman”, and in view of 
the well known custom of the English government to keep 
a secret diplomatic service, especially in Asia, whose busi¬ 
ness it is to furnish reliable news to their home government 
about the plans and policies of certain foreign countries, it 


216 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


is not to be doubted that Capt. Brinkley occupied such a 
secret position in Japan. In fact he was known to diplo¬ 
matic officials of other countries as the agent of Great Brit¬ 
ain. He was thus enabled to render England the patriotic 
service of informing her government correctly about Japan s 
politics and policies, and, at the same time, to misinform, in 
his subsidized paper, the rest of the world, in the interest of 
Japan, and also of England. Thus the latter country knew, 
ahead of the other nations, of Japan’s war preparations, and 
against whom they were directed, and formed an alliance 
with the future world power to further the British inter¬ 
ests. It is not undeservedly that England has been stig¬ 
matized, since more than a hundred years, as “perfidious 
Albion”. 

The activity of the editor of the “Japanese Mail” in 
misinforming the outside world about Japan’s government, 
has been offset to a limited extent by the truth he has told 
in some of his publications regarding the character of the 
Japanese military class; which may be taken as an indication 
that he endeavored to tell the truth in his writings when 
his position as a subsidized journalist permitted it. It is an 
undeniable fact that he was paid to represent the Japanese 
government in the best possible light before the foreign 
nations. If, nevertheless, he had the courage to show up 
the vices of the ruling military class of old and modern 
Japan, his testimony to that effect deserves full credence. 
The first annual “Retrospect” of his paper, as published on 
December 31, 1870, was not of that kind though, but bears 
very strongly the stamp of subsidized sycophancy. It said: 

“Twice since the course of the year has His Majesty 
shown his august countenance to crowds of his subjects, 
both high and low, in the broad daylight. On the 7th 
of May he proceeded on horseback from his palace 
through the streets of Yedo to a place about five miles 
distant and there reviewed a force consisting of cavalry, 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


217 


infantry and artillery. . All along the line of the road 
his well conducted subjects were intently awaiting his 
arrival, and thousands, both of the two-sword class 
(Samurai) and of the common people, were permitted 
to gaze, for the first time, upon the face of the ‘Son of 
Heaven’. Again, on the 3d October, nothing daunted 
by the inclemency of the weather, His Majesty rode out 
to another review in the same public manner. 

“The political significance of such acts as these can¬ 
not be too highly estimated. And it is not only in the 
person of the Emperor himself that a marked change is 
apparent among those who are highest in the land. This 
year has seen two Princes of the Blood leave the sacred 
shores of Japan bound, one to the United States, the 
other to England, with the express purpose of making a 
long sojourn in foreign parts, and in promoting a regu¬ 
lar course of study. This innovation has clearly been 
the result of earnest reflection on the part of the Em¬ 
peror and his chief councilors, and has proceeded from 
a profound sense of the nezv phase upon which Japan 
is entering. They have wisely determined to lead the 
movement. 

“If, as we are informed and believe, the present 
Sovereign is taking an actual part in the government of 
the country, it is clear that he must renounce the life of 
seclusion which was led by his predecessors, and was 
founded on the hypothesis of their divine origin. All 
honor, then, to His Majesty for having taken the first 
step. It is no light thing for The descendant of the 
Gods to emerge from his retreat and shozv his divine 
countenance to the people.** 

The Imperial advisers had, according to this “Retros¬ 
pect”, informed the editor of the “Mail” that the young 
Sovereign had really commenced to rule his people, and 
“seriously consulted with his Advisers about the new phase 
upon which Japan had entered and, after earnest reflection, 
allowed his Imperial relatives to make a trip to Europe.” 
But he was, in fact, in the hands of the priests who guided 
him in the daily devotions of the Shinto Cult, whose “Head” 


218 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

he was, according to the Constitution of ’68. And the bal¬ 
ance of his time he spent in the company of his wife, and 
hot in any “serious consultation” with his Advisers about 
ruling his people, a subject which was entirely foreign to 
his uneducated and weak mind. To hide this condition of 
the young Mikado from the foreign nations, and not to let 
them know who were the real rulers, was a matter of neces* 
sity for the execution of their anti-foreign policies. For 
this purpose a newspaper in the English language which 
would he read by the government officials of the foreign 
nations, was much more useful than any number of Japanese 
ones would have been. And what it published was in the 
foreign countries believed to be true, because it had been 
published by a white race journalist. That this journalist 
would deliberately mislead the outside world about the exist¬ 
ing governmental conditions of Japan by order of the Ruling- 
Powers, was not suspected by the white race governments, 
except that of England, which alone knew the truth. In the 
other countries the journalistic trick of the Samurai Oli¬ 
garchs worked to their perfect satisfaction. 

Yet, if at the beginning of the new rule, foreigners did 
not consult with men connected with the government, bui 
with those members of the nobility who were not yet fully 
reconciled with the usurpation of the supreme power by low- 
class Samurai, they could obtain the truth. The breach between 
the ex-Shogun’s friends and the usurping Samurai had not 
been healed yet so thoroughly that leaks could not have 
occurred. Thus William H. Seward, the great American 
statesman, when returning, after a sojourn of a few months 
in Japan, to Washington, D. C., stated, when interviewed by 
a representative of the “New York Herald” about Japan’s 
new government, the truth in very few words. He did not 
mention the young Mikado at all, but simply said: 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


219 


<{ There is an aristocracy in Japan which has full 

control of the government.” 

There can be no doubt that the foreign officials were, in 
the next years following the establishment of the govern¬ 
ment of 1868, fairly well informed about its condition; but 
Samurai cunning was triumphant in the end. Years of con¬ 
stant and well planned misinformation contained in its adver¬ 
tisements in an English newspaper that was sent to every 
foreign country, and the many misrepresentations made by 
foreign writers who did not know the history, civilization, 
and character of the Japanese, and were captivated by their 
notorious smile and politeness, these agencies working to 
the same end gradually influenced the foreign people to 
admire the activity and abilities of the “little brown men” 
and of their modern Monarch and government. The cun¬ 
ning which the secret Rulers employed in deceiving the out¬ 
side world about the political life of modern Japan borders on 
the marvelous. 

They even used the Mikado’s ignorance for that purpose. 
For, as soon as the Samurai had got possession of the 
supreme power, they encouraged distinguished foreigners, 
especially of the ruling European Houses, to call on him. 
He grew to be a tall young man; his size gave him, among 
his mostly small courtiers, an imposing appearance, while 
his meaningless features were a riddle to the visitors and, 
therefore, interesting. He spoke but very little, his inter¬ 
preter being always thoroughly instructed by the Privy 
Council what he had to say in behalf of the Emperor. At 
public functions, when he appeared before his subjects, he 
did not speak at all, the accompanying official doing it for 
him. His silence was attributed to his self-consciousness 
and the reserve he owed to his exalted position. It may 
here be mentioned that the close watch kept over him at 
night was not abandoned at day-time, although it was less 


220 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


ostensible. Fearing that the former hostile Samurai might 
try to get possession of the Emperor’s person and, thereby, 
capture the supreme power, the Privy Council never allowed 
him to go or ride out alone. There was always an official 
sitting in his carriage with him. It is amusing to notice how, 
later on, the Privy Council endeavored to establish a reputa¬ 
tion as a speaker for him, although they knew that he was 
not intelligent enough to say anything appropriate at any 
public occasion, ex tempore, and that his memory was too 
weak to allow him to memorize even a short address. 

But the Samurai Rulers, having read much about speeches 
made by the President of the United States and the crowned 
Heads of Europe, made up their minds after Japan had, in 
the war with Russia, acquired a position in line with the 
great world powers, that their Emperor should also be 
reported to the outside world as having delivered orations; 
and native and foreign writers were utilized for the pur¬ 
pose. The modus operandi was very simple. Public an¬ 
nouncements which had been promulgated some years ago 
were suddenly called “speeches” of the Emperor. Thus Mr. 
Alfred Stead mentioned in 1902 in his book, “Japan Today”, 
an Imperial Rescript on education. In 1906, after he had 
published a literary work for the government, he obliged 
the Ruling Powers by referring to the “Rescript” as the 
Emperor’s “speech”, which, in fact, never was a speech and 
never delivered. 

But however clever the Authorities, were in deceiving 
their own people as well as the foreign nations about the 
inner workings of their government and the doings of the 
Emperor, they were but human, and fell, occasionally, out 
of their assumed role of praising their Sovereign as the 
supreme political head of the nation. When the first suc¬ 
cess in the war with Russia had been gained, the spell of 
boastfulness that came over the leading government officials 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


221 


stirred their ambition to gather for themselves some of the 
laurels which, through their statesmanship, had been gained, 
and to let the outside world know who really had won all 
the glory. The publication “Japan” contains interesting state¬ 
ments on that subject, which the “Eminent Japanese Author¬ 
ities and Scholars” sent out to the world at that time (1904). 
Referring, in the first place, to the common belief that the 
Emperor had voluntarily granted the Constitution, and there¬ 
by abandoned or curtailed his own rights and privileges, they 
wrote: 

(e That view of the case is not untinged with 
romance^ 

And regarding the share of the Emperor in the govern¬ 
ment of his country, they said: 

“It will naturally occur to the reader of Japan’s 
modern history to inquire what share the Emperor him¬ 
self actually takes in the remarkable changes that sig¬ 
nalize his reign. Japanese publicists refrain from dis¬ 
cussing that question minutely. The native wishes to 
believe that his sovereign exercises a directing influence, 
and the belief has a wholesome effect. In the opening 
years of Mutsu Hito’s reign, his youth necessarily dis¬ 
qualified him to employ the power with zvhich he had 
been suddenly invested. But that, from the first, he 
evinced an intelligent interest in the stirring incidents 
of the era is confirmed by those best qualified to speak. 
Certain broad principles of national and international 
policy have always had His Majesty’s earnest support, 
and it is more than probable that he would refuse his 
confidence to any ministry avowedly deviating from 
them. But on the whole, his active part in the adminis¬ 
tration of state affairs is probably smaller than that of 
the least autocratic Sovereign in Europe. When an 
important question finds the country’s leading statesmen 
in disagreement, it has become habitual that they should 
discuss it in the Mikado’s presence and accept his ver¬ 
dict as final. But, of course, His Majesty decides, if not 
in accordance with the majority, then in favor of those 


222 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

whose views experience has taught him to trust.” 

As this statement comes from leading government offi¬ 
cials, it tells all that they possibly could say without betray¬ 
ing the fact that the Imperial Advisers, the members of the 
so-called Privy Council, are really the Rulers of Japan. They 
told the truth in their statement that the Emperor had no 
opinion of his own, but followed the advice of the Privy 
Council. But they deviated from the truth when they added 
“that the Emperor had always shown an intelligent interest in 
all public affairs, and Supported certain broad principles of 
national and international policy.” The uneducated, weak- 
minded man who thought that he were a “divine” being, who 
ruled his people through his ancestor worship devotions, 
could not possess intelligence enough to understand public 
affairs and national and international policies. But the “Emi¬ 
nent Japanese Authorities” owed it, as members and officials 
of the ruling Oligarchy, to the people to acknowledge “that 
they wished to believe that their Emperor exercised a direct¬ 
ing political influence”. For the ruling Samurai had, since 
the establishment of their government, done everything to 
instill that loyal feeling in the people. In the public schools 
throughout the country the children had, daily, been taught 
the Shinto doctrine of the divinity of the Emperor, so that 
the people’s respect and fanatical veneration of “the exalted 
personage” had gradually become second nature to them. It 
was, therefore, not surprising when, in 1890, after 22 years 
of this teaching, the people became frantic with enthusiasm 
over the wisdom and liberality of their “divine” Sovereign, 
when the Constitution, the apparent means of popular gov¬ 
ernment, was promulgated. That the Imperial Advisers and 
other high officials, later on, claimed for themselves part of 
the glory gained by the nation through the statesmanship of 
the government in peace and war, did not surprise the people 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


223 


at all, because they believed that those officials had faithfully 
served the Emperor. 

What thus had been done by the Japanese schoolmasters 
in making the non-aristocratic classes of their people fanat¬ 
ically loyal to their Emperor, was achieved in a similar man¬ 
ner by the foreign journalists and authors in the foreign 
countries whose governments and all classes of their people 
were taught to see in the Japanese Emperor one of the 
greatest Rulers of modern times. Of course they did not 
believe in his divinity, but neither did they accept the just 
quoted statement of the “J a P anese Authorities” that he was 
guided by his Advisers and high officials. The sycophantic 
descriptions of the Emperor’s ability in which most of the 
foreign authors indulged after the Russian war found more 
belief in Europe and America than the near-truth told by 
the Samurai Oligarchs themselves who had charge of the 
Emperor. In 1906, two years after their above quoted state¬ 
ment had been published, Mr. Alfred Stead gave in his 
work, “Great Japan”, his opinion of the Emperor’s political 
activity, which, although contradicting every word written 
by the “Japanese Authorities” on the subject, seems to have 
found universal belief in all the foreign countries. He wrote: 

“It is no exaggeration to say that as a Monarch the 
Japanese Emperor stands pre-eminent at the present time. 
And he had to accomplish his great work of making 
Japan what she is now, without any of the preparations 
for kingship which falls to the lot of Western Mon- 
archs. Everything was against him, and yet at the 
‘Restoration’ he gathered all the threads in his hands, 
and for forty years has been the motive power for prog¬ 
ress in every department of his empire. Situated as he 
is in isolation, he is not able to touch all the thousand 
and one details of national existence, but the broad lines 
of policy, the essential foundation for success, are due 
to him. There is no statesman in Japan, however great, 
not even the wonderful Ito himself, who shall not ac- 


224 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

knowledge that he is but the instrument of the Emperor, 
and that all his work would have been unavailing had 
it not been for the Imperial impulse. Speaking little, 
thinking much, the Emperor of Japan is one whose utter¬ 
ances must carry weight in Japan above everything else.” 

Six years later, in 1912, the Foreign Representatives who 
attended the Emperor's funeral had their eyes opened to the 
fact that the whole outside world had been grossly deceived 
about the Japanese government, and perceived that the re¬ 
verse was true of what Mr. Stead and other foreign writers 
had published in their panegyrics of the Japanese Monarch. 


13. MUTSU HITO’S FUNERAL PROVES SHINTOISM TO 
RULE JAPAN 

When in August, 1912, the Emperor died, messages of 
condolence came to his family from all the civilized govern¬ 
ments. Princes of the proudest Ruling Houses of Europe, 
and the highest officials of the great American republic, 
flocked to Japan’s capital to attend the funeral. It must have 
been a proud feeling of satisfaction to the Samurai Oli¬ 
garchs to see their country thus honored and respected as 
a first class world power, which only 60 years ago had been 
awed into subserviency to the demands of the United States 
by a few men-of-war and less than a thousand sailors and 
marines. For it was the government of the Samurai which 
had produced that wonderful change. And in their pride 
they did not make any effort to hide from the many foreign¬ 
ers, most of them men of high intelligence and political 
standing, the Shinto rites at the Emperor’s funeral, which 
showed plainly that neither the Japanese people nor their 
Ruling House had adopted the Western civilization, but were 
still fanatically imbued with the prejudices and superstitions 
of the past centuries. A quotation from one of the many 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


225 


similar reports sent to Europe and America by reliable news 
agencies and journalists tells what the foreigners saw at 
the Imperial funeral: 

“Tokyo, Sept. 13 and 14, 1912.—All Japan is in 
mourning today, while the three days’ funeral services 
over the remains of the Emperor Mutsu Hito were in 
progress. Funeral rites of the Shinto religion, unknown 
to any other country, marked the ceremony and will con¬ 
tinue until the final interment of the Mikado in the 
ancient Imperial cemetery near Kioto on Sunday. Japan 
was alone in the observation of the ancient rites, but in 
the modern diplomatic pageantry the United States led. 

“From an early hour the palace in its great private 
park in the heart of the capital was the goal to which vir¬ 
tually everybody in Tokyo made his way on foot. The 
late Emperor only occasionally during his life left the 
moated enclosure where his body had lain in state since 
August 17 th. Since that date, on each tenth day, solemn 
memorial services and sacrifices to the spirit of the .de¬ 
parted Ruler were performed. 

“The casket containing the body lay in state in the 
main hall. It had been decorated according to Shinto 
rites by a special corps of ritualists. 

“As soon as the Imperial processions had entered 
the hall, and those composing them had taken their seats, 
the hanging screen in front of the catafalque was re¬ 
moved by the ritualists, and the Shinto band played a 
soft dirge on instruments resembling flutes, and a peculiar 
drum. The chief ritualist and his assistants proffered 
the offerings of sacred food to the continuous accom¬ 
paniment of the Shinto music, after which other offerings 
of red and white cloth enclosed in willow boxes were 
made. 

(f The most solemn act of all followed when the 
Emperor, the Empress, the Empress Dowager, and the 
Princes and Princesses advanced toward the casket and 
worshipped the spirit of the dead Emperor. 

“Emperor Yoshi Hito was driven to the great ceme¬ 
tery at Aoyama in a state coach. More than 100,000 
persons were present when the funeral procession arrived. 


226 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

Thousands of children were present, the schools having 
been closed. The little ones added their childish treble 
to the intonation of their elders as they chanted their 
prayers to the chief deity or sun goddess of the Shinto 
religion. As the procession arrived, a number of Shinto 
choristers, attired in rich white silk, ascended the plat¬ 
form beside the catafalque, accompanied by the ‘pil¬ 
grim mourners/ who carried a pair of wooden shoes, by 
Emperor Yoshi Hito, by the Empress, and the nobles 
of the Court. 

“The chief priest advanced to the coffin and, stand¬ 
ing before the altar, bowed his head in prayer. Mean¬ 
time offerings of fish, fruit, vegetables, rice, wine, and 
other articles were brought forward upon white plat¬ 
ters. As the priest received each, he called upon the 
spirit of the august Departed to accept it. After a second 
long prayer the Emperor came forward and read a long 
eulogy from a scroll. After reviewing the great deeds 
in the life of the dead Emperor, he closed in these words: 
‘We offer this rite to your worship , and speaking some¬ 
thing of our sad thoughts, pray you to come and receive 
the offering we make! 

“This concluded the ceremony at Aoyama. The 
great concourse gradually dispersed, while the coffin con¬ 
taining the body was carried to a special train, which 
was to convey it to Kioto. At the Kioto cemetery a 
grave 20 feet deep was dug by grave-diggers dressed 
like birds and wearing artificial wings upon their shoul¬ 
ders. The Shinto Cult teaches that birds have no souls, 
and it was considered proper to have make-believe birds 
prepare the final resting place for the late Mikado. 

“On top of the coffin when it is buried will be placed 
the Emperor’s sword, a pair of wooden, so-called Pil¬ 
grim, shoes, a handful of gold coin, and a plate of pol¬ 
ished metal having a long inscription regarding the 
Emperor’s great deeds.” 

The foreigners saw from the beginning to the end of 
the funeral, that the Shinto Cult guided the celebration. The 
singing of the adults and children of the Shinto hymns and 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


2 27 


prayers proves, that, notwithstanding the denial of the Japan¬ 
ese authorities, Shintoism is still the state religion taught in 
the public schools of the country. The ancient custom of 
supplying the dead Monarch with eatables indicates that the 
Shinto Cult rites, with all their absurd superstitions, were 
strictly followed yet in the Imperial palace as well as in 
the huts of the lowest classes of the population. But the 
most significant action was the public prayer of the new 
Emperor to the “spirit” of the deceased Monarch who, accord¬ 
ing to the rules of the Cult, becomes one of the Gods of the 
Heavens as soon as life leaves the Imperial body. That 
prayer was the first devotion he owed, as “Head” of the 
Shinto Cult, and as the new Emperor, to his nearest ances¬ 
tor, and formed the beginning of his devotions to all his 122 
ancestors, by which he is to rule, henceforth, the people of 
Japan, as his predecessors have done since, the 8th century 
A. D. under the ambitious and unscrupulous priests and 
nobles, and as his father, Mutsu Hito, had done since 1868, 
under the rule of the priests and the Samurai Oligarchs. 


14. IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES EMPEROR CELEBRATED 
AS MODERN MONARCH 

While the Ruling Powers satisfied their own people by 
giving to the Shinto Cult full sway at the funeral celebra¬ 
tion in Tokyo, their Representatives in the foreign countries 
solved the problem of pleasing the Western peoples, and won 
their respect at the commemorative exercises in honor of the 
dead Mikado, by completely ignoring the Shinto rites and 
superstitions, and praising him only as a modern Monarch. 
In the United States, wherever there was a Consul or other 
Japanese official residing, there was such a celebration, to 
which city, state and federal officials were invited, and 
other prominent Americans. A description of a typical 


228 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


funeral service of that kind, which took place in one of the 
largest Pacific Coast cities, was furnished by the leading 
morning paper under the following heading: 

“Pay last honors to dead Mikado! Two thousand 
Japanese attend memorial services at University. Mon¬ 
archy is religious. Speeches made by Japanese Consul, 
and also by Judge B., part of the program. 

The report stated that a considerable number of Amer¬ 
icans were present to do honor to the dead Monarch, among 
others the president and the secretary of the local “Cham¬ 
ber of Commerce”, who had, some time ago, “been deco¬ 
rated by the late Emperor with the Order of the Rising 
Sun”. 

The report then continued: 

“Upon the platform was placed a large picture of 
the late Emperor, and this was veiled during the opening 
of the proceedings. A large number of the Japanese 
merchants and professional men appeared in native cos¬ 
tume, and the platform and walls were decorated with 
the Japanese national flags bearing the emblem of the 
Rising Sun. 

“The religious character of the Japanese monarchy 
was illustrated by the obeisances made before the pic¬ 
ture of the dead Mikado. Each of the speakers bowed 
reverently before it at the commencement and end of 
his address. And when the picture was unveiled the 
whole of the audience arose and bowed, while solemn 
music was played. The Japanese Consul spoke of the 
great services to the nation performed by Mutsu Hito, 
and of the loss sustained by his death. The wonderful 
progress of the Empire during the reign of the deceased 
was also referred to by the Consul; and Judge B., who 
spoke in behalf of the American people, paid an eloquent 
tribute to the statesmanlike qualities of the late Emperor. 
The speeches of a Buddhist priest and of a Japanese 
Christian missionary dealt more with the religious side 
of the ceremonies.” 

To give special dignity to these services the Japanese 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


229 


had, through their American friends, obtained the use of 
the auditorium of the University (the highest state institute 
for the teaching of modern science!). The 1500 Japanese 
present did not show any appreciation of that extraordinary 
favor. They exhibited no American flags in honor of the 
country where they are sojourning and earning a better 
living than in Japan. But the numerous Americans present 
were more polite to their Japanese friends. When the pic¬ 
ture of the dead Emperor was exhibited, they bowed to it 
as reverently as the superstitious Japanese did, and a former 
U. S. judge “paid eloquent tribute to the statesmanlike quali¬ 
ties of the Emperor”. No such honors have been shown 
by so many Americans of high standing to the Manes of 
any European Monarch during the existence of the Ameri¬ 
can Republic, as were shown, in 1912, to the half-witted off¬ 
spring of generations of degenerated Mongolian-Tartar an¬ 
cestors, because since 1868 the American people, more than 
the other white race nations, have been systematically de¬ 
ceived by the ruling Samurai Oligarchs of Japan about their 
fraudulent government and civilization. Never have the 
generosity and confidence of a whole nation been more 
grossly betrayed! 

But the lie cannot prevail forever! While the successful 
“conspirators of 1868” were probably inwardly chuckling 
over the triumph of their “Philosophy of Falsehood,” at the 
sight of the honors the multitudes of their own people and 
the representative foreigners of America and Europe paid 
to the last remains of the miserable Imperial tool of the rul¬ 
ing Samurai, the light of truth broke through and opened 
the eyes of many of the foreigners to the almost unbelievable 
fraud that was underlying the civilization and government of 
modern Japan. Thus, on the day after the funeral celebra¬ 
tions, a special representative of leading American news¬ 
papers wrote: 


230 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

“Notwithstanding the gloss of constitutional forms, 
the real government of Japan is as feudal today as when 
the first ancestors of the Mikado ascended the Imperial 
throne at a time lost in historical legend. For the Mikado 
claimed to be one of a dynasty which ruled Japan before 
the Christian era, and which has ruled it, in name at 
least, all down the ages since. Daimyo and Samurai are 
still the living factors of today, as of ages past. The 
Mikado may call himself Emperor, the Daimyo assume 
the name of Marquis, and the Samurai that of Count or 
Baron, but the ideals remain the same, despite the change 
of names and forms.” 

And a European correspondent came nearer the truth 
yet, when he telegraphed the following opinion about the 
Japanese government home: 

“Since the granting of the Constitution by the Em¬ 
peror, the body of five men known as the ‘Old Gentle¬ 
men’ has become the leading part of the government. 
They are superior to the Cabinet, which is composed of 
the ministers. Every matter of importance is referred 
to them, and they decide upon it, thus relieving the 
Emperor of all responsibility. The members of this body 
are recruited from the men who had built up the gov¬ 
ernment of 1868.” 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE ANTI-FOREIGN POLICY OF' JAPAN. ITS 
PRESENT PURPOSES. 

1. SECRET POLICY OF 1869 CARRIED OUT SUCCESS¬ 
FULLY UP TO DATE 

The secret policy of the Japanese government necessi¬ 
tated such stupendous duplicity in the political actions of 
the secret Rulers, their officials, and the allied aristocracy, 
that people brought up under the Western civilization, one 
of whose main tenets is veracity, could not believe that it 
existed, even if so informed, unless they had first learned 
to know the history and character of the military classes of 
Old Japan, and especially of the low type Samurai. This is 
the reason their secret national policy has been successfully 
carried out from its adoption, in 1869, till the present time. 
It will be remembered, from a previous chapter, that its pur¬ 
pose, as stated there from the “Genji Yume Monogatari”, is 
as follows: 

“Let us have intercourse with foreign countries, 
learn their drills and tactics, and when zve shall have 
made the nation as united as one family , we shall be 
able to go abroad and make war, and conquer lands in 
foreign countries, that we can give to those who dis¬ 
tinguished themselves in battle. The soldiers will then 
vie with one another in displaying their intrepidity, and 
it will not be too late then to declare war against the 
foreigners. 

The government had, as related hereinbefore, succeeded, 
in 1869 and the following years, in extinguishing the fierce 
hatred between the Taira and the Minamoto factions, and 
united the people as one family. It had also, by the most 
wonderful change that ever took place in so short a time, in 


232 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

any other people, established friendship with the foreign 
nations, and let their people learn the foreign drill and tac¬ 
tics and everything else necessary to make Japan a modern 
military and naval power. Since 1890 the government was 
greatly aided by the Constitution in this work. It gave the 
secret Rulers absolute power to keep peace or make war, and 
to increase the preparations for a war on land or sea, while 
the Parliament had to raise the necessary money. The for¬ 
eign nations vied with each other in assisting Japan to be¬ 
come a strong military power, and thus, unwittingly, helped 
to make the anti-foreign policy of her secret Rulers a suc¬ 
cess. The government accepted all the foreign assistance it 
could get, and, in 1894, went into its first war with China 
with the sympathies of the Western nations on the side of 
Japan. The war was uncalled for, and, as some of the Jap¬ 
anese generals later on acknowledged, waged only for the 
purpose of testing their troops in a fight with a nation of 
their own race, before undertaking a war with any white 
race people. Modern drill instructors and arms proved 
superior to the antiquated arms and fighting methods of the 
Chinese, and brought Japan the glory of having vanquished 
the greatest nation of Asia, besides getting an increase of 
her territory, of which the Island of Formosa and the south 
end of the Liao-Tung Peninsula were the principal parts. 
It is modern history that the latter acquisition had, at the 
demand of Russia, France, and Germany, to be returned to 
China, which leased it to Russia. This action of the three 
European powers was felt by the Samurai Oligarchs and 
the whole military class as a deep humiliation for which 
they were determined to get revenge. They got it from 
Russia in the war of 1904 and ’05, and from Germany in 
the present European war, and will get it from France at 
the first opportunity offering itself. 

In 1909 Japan sent a detachment of troops to China 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


233 


during the “Boxer rebellion’’, to participate, jointly with 
European and American forces, in suppressing the rebels. 
But the real purpose of the government was to give the Ja¬ 
panese military authorities an opportunity to see whether their 
troops were, in drill and fighting spirit, the equals of the 
white race soldiers or not. Exaggerated reports about the 
wonderful action of the Japanese soldiers in the fights with 
the “Boxers” were sent to European and American papers, 
and increased the general admiration of the outside world 
for “the little brown men”. The truth is that, having been 
instructed by the best foreign drill masters since 1873,— 
during 27 years,—the Japanese soldiers were, in 1900, as 
well drilled as those of the civilized Western nations, and in 
consequence of their fanatical loyalty to their Emperor, as 
brave and willing to endure the hardships of military life in 
war, as the white race soldiers were from their sense of 
duty to their country and people. 

After this satisfactory test of the Japanese military the 
first war against a white race nation was planned, and, for 
various reasons, Russia selected as the first victim of the 
foreign-hating Samurai government. It was not afraid that 
Russia would ever try to conquer the Japanese Isles, a 
task which even the, everywhere else, invincible Mongolian 
hordes in the 13th century had not achieved. But it was 
feared in Japan that Russia, by absorbing Korea, and retain¬ 
ing possession of the Liao-Tung Peninsula, would prevent 
Japan from making any territorial acquisitions on the neigh¬ 
boring North Asiatic Continent. Hence Russia was consid¬ 
ered as Japan’s enemy, and had to be vanquished; an under¬ 
taking which the ruling Samurai did not look upon as too 
great a task. They knew that Russia was not prepared for 
such a conflict. Her base of supplies was 5000 miles away 
with no other means of transportation to the fields of the 
coming war than the uncompleted Siberian railroad. Japan- 


234 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


ese officers had also spied about in the Russian forts, har¬ 
bors, and military camps, and learned that most of the com¬ 
manding officers were not competent to lead great armies 
in an extended war. Besides that, the Japanese government 
had not forgotten that, in the interest of Russia, it had been 
compelled to give up the Liao-Tung Peninsula, an humiliation 
to the proud Samurai zuhich they bitterly resented, and for 
zvhich they were determined to get revenge. 

The war was commenced with Japanese treachery and 
cunning. Admiral Togo, a Samurai of the Satsuma clan, 
destroyed the best Russian warships in a Russian harbor 
before war had been declared, thus gaining for the Japanese 
fleet a superiority which led, later on, to the destruction of 
the whole Russian navy. The history of the war is yet 
fresh in the minds of the civilized world. The main Japanese 
army defeated the numerically larger but not as well officered 
Russian one in several great battles, while another smaller 
army captured Port Arthur and the adjoining Russian pos¬ 
sessions. Russia was compelled to make peace, ceding to 
the victors a number of Islands, besides the Liao-Tung Penin¬ 
sula with Port Arthur, and giving them a free hand in Korea 
to annex that country when they were ready to do so. Thus 
ended Japan’s first war of conquest against one of the 
greatest nations of the white race, bringing her glory and, 
including the later annexed Korea, considerable territorial 
possessions, although no financial recompensation but, instead 
of that, a big war debt, which nearly caused a rebellion in 
the Japanese capital. 

2 PORT ARTHUR’S FALL AND ITS LESSON TO THE 
FOREIGN NATIONS 

The conquest of Port Arthur which had, with good 
reason, the reputation of being as impregnable as Gibraltar, 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


235 


formed, according to Japanese historians, and the unani¬ 
mous opinion of their people, the most glorious achievement 
of the whole war. From the standpoint of a government 
controlled by members of the Samurai class, who never had 
shown any regard for the rights, property, and lives of the 
common people, that opinion was correct. But if the people 
had known the reasons which had caused the wholesale sac¬ 
rifice of life at that occasion, they would have thought dif¬ 
ferently. No less than 30,000 young men were killed at 
Port Arthur, and many thousands crippled for life. These 
men had, since childhood, been taught in the public schools 
the Shinto doctrine that everything they possessed, even the 
right to live on Japanese soil, they owed to the kindness of 
their divine Mikado , to whom and whose officials and officers 
they must, consequently be obedient unto death. With blind 
fanaticism the soldiers, therefore, obeyed General Nogi 
whom the government had put in charge of the army that 
besieged Port Arthur, with the order to take it, and without 
delay. It has been claimed by leading officials and military 
men after the war, that the speedy capture of Port Arthur 
was necessary so that Nogi’s troops could assist the niain 
army in the gigantic struggle at Mukden. But that was not 
the real cause of the slaughter of half of his men in the 
quick conquest of the Gibraltar of the Pacific. The Japan¬ 
ese spies had informed their government that Port Arthur 
was not provisioned for a long siege; and half of Nogi’s 
command would, supported as it was by the whole Japanese 
fleet, have been able to starve the Russians into surrendering. 

The Samurai Rulers had a reason of their own for 
which no white race Ruler would ever have sacrificed his 
subjects, but for which they, without any compassion or 
compunction, sent 30,000 of their soldiers into a cruel death. 
These human hecatombs were sacrificed to the race pride 
of the Samurai. They wanted to show .to the whole civi- 


236 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


lized world that, what Russia had not dared take from Japan 
but with the assistance of two other world powers, her people 
could take back alone, without any help from anybody, be¬ 
cause they were the superior race of men who could accomp¬ 
lish what no other race was able to do. This sentiment had 
been plainly expressed by the ruling Oligarchy a couple of 
years before the Russian war, in an “Imperial Order to the 
Army”, which was made known to all the members of the 
army and navy as soon as drafted, and repeatedly read to 
them during their time of service; its climax being contained 
in the following sentence: 

“Of every one of you the Emperor and your coun¬ 
try expects the accomplishment of the impossible.” 

General Nogi gave full expression to his pride of hav¬ 
ing accomplished “the impossible”, after his last assault upon 
and capture of, the so-called 203 Meter Hill, where his troops, 
among which was the only son left him, were literally mowed 
down by the thousands by the Russian fire. In a short epi¬ 
logue to the memory of that son, he said in Japanese verse: 

“On Hill two hundred meter, 

High and steep, looms up 
The fort, not too high for us; 

We burn to conquer 
All! We know no obstacles.” 

This conquest was to give the white race nations notice 
and warning that their supremacy had come to an end, and 
that the Japanese had already commenced to follow in the 
footsteps of their great race relatives, Genghis Khan and 
Tamerlane, who had, in the 13th and 14th centuries, irre- 
sistably conquered half of the known earth. Hence the order 
given by the government that Port Arthur should not be 
taken by a long siege, nor by starving the insufficiently pro¬ 
visioned Russian garrison, nor obtained by a peace stipula¬ 
tion; but it must be captured by overwhelming brute force, 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


237 


at any cost. The manner in which this extraordinary order 
was carried out has been denounced by everyone who has 
witnessed it, even if only for a few hours, as the most hor¬ 
rible slaughter of human beings imaginable. Hour after 
hour the attacking Japanese were torn to pieces by the Rus¬ 
sian shells, or cremated alive in the ditches that were filled 
with brush and wood soaked with coal oil, which was ignited 
by electricity. The cries of the burnt and wounded almost 
drowned the report of the guns; for, however brave the Jap¬ 
anese soldiers were, they had human bodies which felt the 
piercing pain. But the place of the dead and shrieking 
wounded was always immediately taken by other soldiers, 
and thus every attack upon the besieged renewed, until, at 
last, the Russians, completely exhausted from the carnage 
they had inflicted, retired from 203 Meter Hill, which formed 
the key to Port Arthur. 

Nobody understood the motives and intentions of the 
government in the .enforced conquest of the great Russian 
stronghold better than General Nogi, who, as a Samurai of 
the Choshiu clan, had, in 1868, served in the army that de¬ 
feated the last Shogun, Keiki, and helped to put the leading 
Samurai of the Satsuma, Choshiu and Tosa combination in 
possession of the Court and the person of the Mikado. He 
had, consequently, been one of the men who, under the pre¬ 
tense of “restoring the ancient Monarchy”, had founded the 
Samurai Oligarchy. For he was a Samurai of the Samurai, 
the interests of his class being to him the supreme iaw. 
Hence, knowing the secret plans of the government, he car¬ 
ried them out with his notorious stubbornness, animating 
his soldiers by telling them that they must obey the will of 
their “divine” Emperor. And yet he well knew that it was 
not the figure-head Monarch, but the Samurai Oligarchs of 
the Privy Council, who had undertaken the war and were 


238 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

sacrificing the soldiers’ lives for their own interests and 
political schemes. 

But the ignorant and fanatical people made Nogi, for 
his Samurai valor and the stubbornness which gained for 
the Japanese Empire such an extraordinary victory and so 
much glory, their favorite military hero, and even expected 
that the government would, after the enthronement of the 
new Emperor, bestow on him and his wife posthumous hon¬ 
ors for having sacrificed their own lives, according to an 
ancient Japanese custom, at the death of the Emperor Mutsu 
Hito, in 1912. Such is the so-called modern civilization of 
the Japanese people! 


3. THE TRUTH ABOUT THE NOGI TRAGEDY. 

But to be just to Count Nogi, and especially his noble 
wife, it must be stated that both were prompted by higher 
motives than the adherence to an ancient savage custom, 
when they walked voluntarily, in a painful manner, into the 
valley of death. The custom of committing “Harakiri” or 
“ Seppuku” was introduced in Japan in ancient times under 
the name of “Junshi ”, or “death in company”, and obliged 
the wife, concubines, and principal adherents and servants 
of a Prince to accompany him into the spirit world. Up to 
the first century A. D. it was a law, but after that only a 
more or less observed custom, which finally died out, to be 
renewed again by the Samurai, principally through the teach¬ 
ings of fidelity, in the Chinese classics of Confucius and 
Mencius. Seppuku was so frequently committed under the 
rule of the great Tokugawa Shogun, Iyeyasu, that he finally 
forbade it. But notwithstanding the stern measures employed 
to abate the custom, it was not completely abolished until 
1669, when a military noble committed Harakiri to honor 
his deceased Daimyo, and the ruling Shogun punished the 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


239 


family of the nobleman by having his two sons decapitated, 
and the whole clan disciplined. Since that time Harakiri 
was not practiced any more at the death of a Prince by his 
subordinates; but it survived, nevertheless, because it had, 
in course of time, been given other meanings, which Pro¬ 
fessor Nitobe, the Samurai author heretofore mentioned, 
describes as follows, as having been practised up to 1869, 
when Japan was opened to the white race nations: 

“Harakiri is a type of what w.as expected of a 
Samurai when he disgraced himself. It is not unusual 
to hear the word—which, by the way, is more usually 
called by us ‘Seppuku’ or ‘Happuku’—jeeringly men¬ 
tioned by foreign writers; and certainly the practice is, 
in itself, a revolting one. When it was administered as 
a punishment, it amounted to this, that the guilty one 
admitted his own crime; it was as though he said: I 
have done wrong, I punish myself with my own hands, 
for I judge myself. 

“If the accused were innocent, he would neverthe¬ 
less often commit Seppuku. The cool deliberation, with¬ 
out which Seppuku would be impossible, was to prove 
that it was not adopted in haste, or in a fit of madness. 
A clear conscience marked each step of the undertaking. 
The pain which it necessitated was the measure of the 
fortitude with which it was borne. In one word, the 
innocent committer of Seppuku could say: ‘Bear wit¬ 
ness of my dying the death of courage. I am not guilty; 
I will show you my soul that you may judge for your¬ 
self.’ ” 

Mr. Brinkley, the learned author of “Japan, Its History, 
Arts, and Literature”, has written more explicitly on the 
subject of Harakiri or Seppuku: 

“This mode of suicide adopted by the Samurai was 
so painful and shocking that to school the mind to regard 
it with indifference and resort to it without flinching 
was a feat not easy to conceive. This method was to 
plunge a short sword into the left side of the abdomen, 
swop it across to the right, giving it a sharp upward 


240 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


turn at the end of the gash; then to withdraw it, thrust 
it into the back of the neck and cut across toward the 
throat. Assistance was often rendered by a friend who, 
sword in hand, stood ready to decapitate the victim 
immediately after the stomach had been gashed. But 
there were innumerable examples of men who consum¬ 
mated the tragedy without aid, especially when the sac¬ 
rifice of life was by way of protest against the excesses 
of a feudal chief, or the crimes of a Ruler, or when 
some motive of secrecy existed. 

“The general motives were to escape the dishonor 
of falling into the hands of a victorious enemy, to 
remonstrate against some official abuse which no ordi¬ 
nary complaint could reach, or, by means of dying pro¬ 
test to turn a liege lord from pursuing courses injurious 
to his reputation and his fortunes. This last was the 
noblest reason for suicide, and by no means the most 
infrequent. Scores of examples are recorded of men 
who, with everything to make existence desirable, for¬ 
tune, friends, high office, and higher prospects, deliber¬ 
ately laid down their lives at the prompting of loyalty, 
their sense of duty depriving the ‘Seppuku’ of all its 
horrors. There the Japanese • warrior rose to a remark¬ 
able height of moral nobility. He had no assurance that 
his death might not be wholly fruitless. So, indeed, it 
often proved.” 

The Countess Nogi belonged to the Samurai class, and 
had been well educated. She, like all the members of the 
military class, knew the condition of the Emperor, and that 
the Samurai Oligarchs of the Satsuma and Choshiu clans 
ruled the country. And it is but natural that, as the wife of 
the leading military commander, and the mother of two army 
officers, she was aware that future wars against other white 
race nations were to follow. She was a woman of tender 
feelings, who had not only deeply mourned, ever since the 
capture of Port Arthur, over the death of her two sons, but 
openly acknowledged that she had, during the war, refrained 
from walking, at day-time, through the streets of Tokyo, 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


241 


because she could not bear to see the many mourning women 
whose sons or husbands had been slaughtered at Port Arthur 
under the command of her husband. 

Since the war she had, together with her husband, trav¬ 
eled abroad and made a prolonged stay in Europe, from 
which they returned in February, 1912, to Japan. When 
visiting their old home in Choshiu, the General was re¬ 
ceived with high honors, and in the speeches made at his 
reception a great deal was said about the progress achieved, 
of late years, by the Japanese people. Count Nogi, to the 
general surprise of his countrymen, replied: 

“The Japanese are proud of being a first class 
nation. But when traveling through Europe one finds 
that Japan is in every regard yet behind the times. 
Japan has nothing to be proud of but her success in w<*. . 
It is ridiculous when foreigners flatter us about our 
progress. There is no truth in these compliments.” 

That General Nogi, the leading Samurai soldier, could 
hold such an opinion was, to the members of his class, whose 
self-conceit is proverbial even in Japan, disgustingly disagree¬ 
able. Their pride does not allow them to think that Japan 
is in any way inferior to the Western nations. Superiority 
on the battlefield is to them an indication of a superior civi¬ 
lization; and had they not vanquished, on land and sea, the 
most powerful nation of Europe, the cradle and principal 
home of the Western civilization? Nogi’s speech to his 
friends and neighbors at his old home was explained as 
being proof that, from unknown causes, his reason had given 
away; and, according to reports from Tokyo, prominent men 
there were claiming that Nogi’s mind had become unsettled 
by brooding over the heavy loss of life his army had sus¬ 
tained at the siege of Port Arthur, and he had, in conse¬ 
quence thereof, committed suicide. But the great masses of 
the people looked upon the tragical death of their favorite 


242 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


General as his highest act of loyalty to the deceased Emperor, 
according to the custom of ancient times. The Samurai Oli- 
garches, though, knew better, but did not inform the public 
about the true meaning of the tragedy, because it was, in 
fact, a solemn reproof of their policies. 

Since the creation of the Samurai class of military 
retainers in the 12th century, Harakiri was committed by 
them in honor of their dead Daimyo, but never at the death 
of a Mikado who were, on acount of their well known low 
position as political figure-heads, but very little esteemed by 
the military class, as has been related herein before. And 
as all the Samurai connected with the present government 
are well aware that Mutsu Hito’s political position had not 
been any better than that of his predecessors under the rule 
of the Shoguns, and besides that, know that to commit Hara- 
kiri in honor of a deceased Prince has, since 1669, been an 
heinous crime, it would, certainly, have been the height of 
absurdity for the most prominent military leader of Japan 
to end his glorious career by committing a criminal act in 
honor of a Monarch whom he knew to be an helpless poli¬ 
tical tool in the hands of the Privy Council. Count Nogi was 
too intelligent a man to indulge in such an hypocritical show 
of patriotism. The reasons for his tragic death were of a 
dififerent and more honorable nature. 

He had, during his sojourn in Europe, learned that the 
governments of all the advanced nations are based upon 
the great principle established first in the “Declaration of 
Independence of the United States,” that “all human beings 
possess the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness.” Those governments, therefore, have the sac¬ 
red duty to preserve the lives and foster the well-being of 
their peoples. They, consequently, abhor war as a perhaps 
unavoidable, but nevertheless barbarous evil, and endeavor 
to make their subjects or citizens prosperous in peaceful 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


243 


pursuits. When Nogi and his wife, whose hearts had been 
softened by years of mourning over the loss of their sons, 
remembered that the latter, together with their thousands of 
comrades, had been slaughtered at Port Arthur, not for any 
great principle, but in order to satisfy the fanatical hatred of 
the Samurai Oligarchs against the white race, their greed 
for more territorial possessions, and their almost insane race 
pride and ambition—reason finally prevailed over Nogi’s and 
his wife’s unreasonable hatred of the white race, and con¬ 
vinced them of the superiority of the altruistic ethics of the 
Western civilization over the teachings of the Chinto Cult, 
which, as they knew, were only used by their government 
for the purpose of executing its anti-foreign war policies. 
The Count’s address to his Town people shows that he did not 
believe any more that superiority on the battlefield is an 
indication of an higher civilization which the victors had a 
right, in imitation of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, and 
their Mongolian-Tartar hordes, to force with the sword upon 
the foreign nations; and, as an honorable man, he decided 
not to assist any more in carrying out the future war plans 
of the ruling Oligarchs. 

He could not make this known to the public, though, 
because, according to the rules of conduct of the Samurai, it 
would have been dishonorable to expose the members of his 
own class to public scorn, and an act of high treason to make 
known the secrets of the government, however much wrong 
the latter might be. But he could enter a solemn, though 
silent, protest against the secret war policies of the ruling 
Oligarchs by committing Harakiri. He chose for that pur¬ 
pose a day shortly before the burial of the Emperor, because 
the self-immolation of Japan’s most famous warrior on that 
occasion would lead the common people and the foreigners 
into the erroneous belief that he had imitated the ancient 
custom of “Junshi” in honor of the dead Mikado, while his 


244 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


brother Samurai would understand the true meaning of the 
suicidal act. That they did so has been proven by the fact 
that no posthumous honors were bestowed upon Nogi and 
his wife, notwithstanding the clamor of the people for such 
distinctions. 

The Countess was not willing to pass, bent down by 
double grief, her remaining years in useless mourning, but 
determined also to sacrifice her life to strengthen her hus¬ 
band’s protest, and to atone, by the painful manner of her 
demise, for the ruthless slaughter of her sons and the thou¬ 
sands of others whom he had led into a premature and cruel 
death at Port Arthur.* Thus died this distinguished couple 
a noble death that will proudly be recorded, for ages to 
come, in the history of a more civilized Japan. But the fact 
that they were the victims of the highest virtues of the pres¬ 
ent Japanese civilization, proves that the latter stands far 
below that of the white race nations, which demands no 
human sacrifice in order to proclaim truth and justice. 

That the tender little woman was the greater and nobler 
of the two actors in this remarkable tragedy is not an acci¬ 
dent. For the Japanese woman represents that which is best 
in the whole race. If her conduct is not fully understood 
by the white race people, it is because her soul is to them a 
blank leaf. Many of her actions appear inconsistent, ignoble, 
and even base. Thus as a pure, modest girl she will become 
a public harlot to earn the money with which to pay off the 


* Footnote : It has not been understood by the foreign newspaper men who 
were in Tokyo at the time of the suicide of Count Nogi and his wife, how it 
happened that she, the delicate little woman, inflicted upon herself the very 
painful disembowelment, while her husband, the grim Samurai warrior, had 
chosen the almost painless death by cutting his throat. This peculiar circum¬ 
stance is easily explained. Nogi stood by his wife, with the short sword used 
by those committing Harikari in his hand, ready to put an end to her suffering 
after she had gashed her abdomen, by cutting her throat, which is considered 
as a friendly act. But the pain which the Countess imposed upon her tender 
body elicited a shriek from her, which was heard by the servants, who, not 
knowing what had happened, hurried to her room. The General, hearing them 
coming and determined to die with his wife, as they had agreed, had no time 
to commit Harakiri, but was only able to cut his throat before the servants 
entered.—(The Author.) 



The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


245 


debts of her father or brother. And after she has per¬ 
formed that duty she will lead again a reputable life. A 
young mother who must earn her living, straps her baby to 
her back and keeps it there while she works in the house, 
field, or factory. During her short periods of rest she nurses 
and comforts the child, and continues her work all day with¬ 
out ever complaining. The wife has no right to address her 
husband with any endearing terms, but must call him her 
master; yet she is his loving and untiring helpmeet. Al¬ 
though jealous by nature, the Japanese wife will show no 
anger when her husband brings a concubine to live at the 
family home. She will treat the unwelcome guest politely, 
take care of her in sickness, and adopt her children, so that 
they may get the name of their father. Thus sacrificing 
and enduring love permeates the whole life of the Japanese 
woman as daughter, sister, wife and mother. And as love, 
not hatred, makes the world better, it can safely be pre¬ 
dicted that, if the Japanese are ever to receive an higher 
civilization than the present one which has been forced upon 
them by the virulent and selfish Shinto priests and military 
nobles, it will be due to the unselfish, all-conquering love 
of the Japanese women. 


4. THE JAPANESE THE MOST TAX-RIDDEN PEOPLE 

Returning, after this digression, to the intentions of the 
Japanese government, it has been proved by the adoption of 
its anti-foreign and war policy in 1869, and by its before- 
mentioned publication about Japan’s further intended achieve¬ 
ments, that it is planning for another war. But there is also 
uncontrovertible evidence that the next war cannot be far 
off. It has been shown by quotations from reliable Japanese 
authorities that the Japanese people are heavily taxed; but 
to understand the extent of this taxation, it is necessary to 


246 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


go back to the year 1895, and learn, from Mr. Curtis’ “Let¬ 
ters About Japan”, how unmercifully, at that early time, 
ten years before the Russian war, the government was, like 
a gigantic octopus, sucking the life blood of its people. Mr. 
Curtis introduced the matter by saying that the wealth of 
Japan, in 1895, was only one-tenth of the wealth of England, 
but that her people were taxed more than the English, and 
in fact more than any other nation, to raise the money for 
her yearly expenditures which were principally needed for 
the building up of a great army and navy. He then stated: 

“Every foot of useful land was taxed very heavily. 
The income tax commenced with a yearly income of 
$150, and increased with greater wealth. There was a 
tax on the issue of every national and other bank. 
Stamps were needed on all deeds, bonds, checks, receipts, 
and other legal and commercial papers. Every suit 
filed in court, criminal or civil, must pay tax by means 
of stamps attached to the papers. In criminal cases 
the costs were assessed against the defendants. All 
forms of speculation were taxed; consequently all the 
transactions on the stock exchange, the produce ex¬ 
change, and other open boards of trade. 

“There was an high tax on the sale and transfer 
of government bonds; also on sake, beer, and all other 
kinds of liquors; furthermore on patent medicines and 
confectioneries; also on ‘soyu’, the favorite Japanese 
sauce, and on yeast. Every owner of a ship, steamer, 
sailing vessel of any kind, and anything that floats, must 
buy a license. So must the owner of land vehicles of 
every kind. Every horse, dog, cow, or cat was taxed a 
certain amount. Also every gun owned by anybody, 
whether he uses it or not. Watches and clocks were 
taxable goods. And every person engaged in business, 
the newspaper boy who sells papers on the street, the 
poor old woman who sells rice-cakes or candies on the 
street corner, the porters in the railroad depots, must 
pay taxes to be permitted to carry on their humble busi¬ 
ness. Of course, all the corporations were assessed, 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


247 


whether engaged in mining, „ industries, or in any other 
way. In fact, it was hard to find anybody or anything 
in the country who or what was not taxed; although 
the income of most of the people was ridiculously small 
according to Western ideas; the wages of mechanics 
averaging from 17 to 38 cents per day, and of servants 
in private houses from 50 cents to $12.00 per month, 
with board of the simplest kind.” 


5. JAPAN’S PRESENT TAXATION IS RUINOUS 

This was Mr. Curtis’ report about Japan’s taxation in 
1895. Today the humorous part of his pen picture is out of 
place, because the tax question of Japan has, of late years, 
from the standpoint of national economy, become tragical, 
as is shown by the reports of the Royal Statistical Society 
of England, which show that, during the 12 years from 
1897 to 1908, the state and local taxes per average family 
have increased from 7.75 to 32.75 Yen, or 423 per cent. The 
Japanese government has, consequently, been flooded, since 
years, with complaints about the exorbitant taxation and, 
finally, reluctantly acknowledged that, from its own investi¬ 
gations, it has been ascertained that the Japanese must give 
up Jj per cent of their entire income for the payment of 
direct taxes . 

In any other country a revolution would put a speedy 
end to a government levying, in times of peace, such an extra¬ 
ordinarily high tax upon its people. But in Japan the non- 
aristocratic classes are, since centuries, accustomed to high 
taxation. When the Daimyo, during their civil wars, needed 
money, they did not hesitate to tax the farming element of 
their clans as high as 50 per cent of their income. That 
was a war-tax. And when, under the Tokugawa rule, from 
1600 to 1868, the Shoguns’ national government was in finan¬ 
cial difficulties, it took even more than 50 per cent of the 


248 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


farmer’s income as a peace tax. But the Daimyo as well as 
the Shoguns left the farmers enough to live on with their 
families, which, under the present government, is not the 
case with some classes of the common people. 

The statistics show that during the period from 1897 
to 1908, while the taxes went up 423 per cent, the cost of 
living also increased 80 per cent, but that the wages of the 
skilled and organized workmen who are the best paid but 
smallest class in the country, had gone up only 55 per cent. 
The income of the large class of low-salaried officials was 
raised only 20 per cent, and the low wages of several hundred 
thousand unskilled laborers, including a multitude of women 
and children, had shown hardly any advance at all. But tue 
farmers had fared worse yet. While in 1890 their yearly 
income on which the whole family had to live, amounted to 
27 Yen ($13.50), it was in 1908 29 Yen ($14.50), an in¬ 
crease of one dollar in 18 years, during which time the cost 
of living had been doubled. And the 37.60 per cent of all 
the farmers, whose land holdings is only 1*4 acre to each 
family, were rapidly sinking into abject poverty. 

It has been stated that from 1897 to 1908 the wages of 
the low salaried officials had been raised 20 per cent. That 
statement does not tell the story of the poverty prevailing 
amongst most of the employes of the government. In 1902 a 
semi-official publication gave the following statistical figures 
bearing on the subject. The income of the 42,728 officials 
of the whole Japanese administration was 13,668,246 Yen 
per annum, or an average of not quite $160.00 (American 
money) per head a year. The 1674 judges and other mem¬ 
bers of the judiciary of the country had an average yearly 
salary of $36.50,—as much as a clerk in a store. And the 
unfortunate 73,160 teachers in the primary schools, who have 
the difficult task of making the children learn the thousands 
of Chinese ideographs used in the Japanese language, and 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


249 


impressing on their minds the superstitions of the Shinto 
Cult, received on an average less than the wages of a com¬ 
mon laborer. 

Dr. B. Dernbarg, formerly Colonial Minister of the Ger¬ 
man Empire, who had visited Japan in 1911 to ascertain 
whether or not her industries would threaten, by their cheap 
labor, soon to drive the foreign manufacturers from the East 
Asiatic markets, gave the following statement of Japan’s 
financial and industrial condition: 

“The Japanese are paying on a national debt of 
1700 million dollars (American money) interests amount¬ 
ing to $1.75 per year to the average head of the whole 
population; while the entire yearly taxation per average 
head is $5.00. The mineral production of Japan amounts 
to the insignificant sum of 50 million dollars a year. 
Only 60,000 tons of iron are annually produced. Except¬ 
ing coal and iron, the mineral deposits of Japan have 
not been properly opened. What has been done in that 
line is, like the agricultural work, in an infantile stage. 
The cattle business is so small as not to be worth men¬ 
tioning; there is, consequently, no wool production in 
the country, which is so much more detrimental, because 
its cotton crops are decreasing every year, making it 
necessary to import cotton from China. Silk and its 
products form the main export article, amounting to 40 
per cent of the whole national export. This limited ex¬ 
port, and the small home consumption—which latter is 
caused by the poverty of large classes of the people, 
their scant clothing, and the absence of furniture and 
household utensils in their tent-like houses—prevent the 
development of an healthy industry. 

“Another difficulty lies in the want of a steady in¬ 
dustrial population. Out of 60 million inhabitants there 
are only 650,000 industrial workers, two-thirds of whom 
are women. This total number is still reduced by the 
124,000 workers employed in the government shops. 
The want .of laborers goes hand in hand with the insuf¬ 
ficient number of industrial leaders. The Japanese are, 
naturally, not adapted for such advanced positions. The 


250 The Secrets of . the Japanese Government 

transition of Japan from an agricultural to an industrial 
country has been too sudden. The government has 
endeavored to better things by creating state monopo¬ 
lies, but has not been able to put the industries on an 
healthy basis. Even the subsidies it pays seem to be 
misplaced. For the purpose of furthering commercial 
shipping, a number of companies were, during the year 
1911, given by the state a subsidy of 5 yj million dollars; 
but they were not able to pay their stockholders more 
than XyJ million dollars dividends—one-third only of 
the amount of the subsidy; an unmistakable sign that 
there are more commercial ships built in Japan than her 
trade requires 

What this European expert on national economy says 
is true from the standpoint of the European and American 
nations who want to prosper through peaceful pursuits. But 
from the standpoint of the modern Japanese civilization 
which has as its secret base of prosperity a policy of war and 
conquest, the Japanese government is correct in sacrificing 
everything in order to raise its military and naval strength 
to a point where it must bring success in its future wars. 
That is the reason agricultural progress is not initiated, the 
mineral treasures of the country, which do not contain the 
much needed gold, not opened up, and the demands of a 
sound national economy grossly ignored, while millions upon 
millions of dollars are sunk every year in the endeavor to 
build a powerful army, one of the most formidable navies, 
and a large commercial fleet for which there is not sufficient 
trade to support it, but which is needed for the support of 
the navy in case of war. 


6. SIGNS OF HOSTILITY AMONG THE PEOPLE 
AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT 

It is the boast of all the Japanese writers that there 
never has been a rebellion against the Imperial House whose 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 251 

members have occupied the throne since mythical times. 
Some foreign writers have doubted the truth of that claim, 
but not with good cause. It is, certainly, an extraordinary 
political phenomenon, and one to which the history of man¬ 
kind has no parallel, that a people did submit quietly to be 
ruled and robbed by or in the name of the same Imperial 
House during 2500 years and, at the end of that long period 
of time, still respect and revere the oilspring of it with 
fanatical loyalty. But in a country where the ancestor wor¬ 
ship has been practiced from the foundation of the Empire 
to the present time, nothing else could be expected. For 
the worship of the past generations is reactionary; it leads 
from the love of the ancestors to the love of their customs, 
and makes their ancient habits of life the rule for the 
future. 

That is the reason why administrative and other abuses 
endured by the Japanese 1500 years ago were yet in full 
force at the time of the opening of the country by the 
foreigners in 1854; for the only nations with which the peo¬ 
ple had, during those 15 centuries, had intercourse, the Chi¬ 
nese and Koreans, were also worshippers of the past, and 
therefore not able to lead their Japanese neighbors out of 
their political and economical stagnation. 

The ruling classes of Japan threw off this yoke of an¬ 
cient reactionary life very quickly, when they became ac¬ 
quainted with the Western civilization whose principal object 
is to foster progress constantly, from generation to gen¬ 
eration. But they did not intend to disturb the people’s 
Rip-van-Winkle sleep, who through priests and school¬ 
teachers were kept in the thrall of the ancestor worship. 
In vain, though! The thousands of Japanese who, every 
year, left Japan for foreign countries to study or work 
there, and the multitudes of them who came back every 
year established a bridge on which Western views of life, 


252 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


industrial customs, all sorts of theories came to Japan, and, 
as a matter of course, also socialism. 

The socialistic agitation became, after some small begin¬ 
nings, energetic and bold when a man by the name of Ko- 
toku appeared as the leading spirit. He was the son of 
Christian Japanese, and the protege of the missionaries of the 
denomination to which his parents belonged. He went to 
France to obtain an European education, and gradually be¬ 
came known as so able a writer on national economy, social¬ 
ism, communism, and kindred subjects that some journalists 
saw in him a great future reformer, a Japanese Tolstoy, 
thereby greatly overrating him. From France Kotoku went 
to San Francisco, where he met with Japanese of a similar 
bend of mind and planned his coming campaign in Japan, 
for which he equipped himself with a large supply of liter¬ 
ature printed in the newspaper offices of the California 
socialists. 

Kotoku was an energetic organizer, and instrumental in 
the formation of a number of socialistic groups which had 
a radical platform, published several newspapers, owned their 
own printing offices, and agitated publicly and secretly with 
considerable success. In March, 1909, he was bold enough 
to arrange in Tokyo a socialistic street demonstration which, 
although forbidden by the police, yet came off with several 
hundred men parading through the streets for a short time, 
and exhibiting banners whose inscriptions would have been 
conisdered too radical in many less conservative countries 
than Japan. Some of them read: “Abolish the Govern¬ 
ment !” ‘Down with the Army !” “Down with all Wars!” 
“Welcome Communism!” “Abolish all Property Rights.” 
The parade ended with the arrest of fifty of the participants 
in the demonstration, who received jail sentences. * 

After that date the government took energetic steps to 
prevent all further agitation; the socialistic newspapers were 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


253 


suppressed, and the printing offices closed. But Kotoku was 
as eager to carry on his agitation as the police was to sup¬ 
press it, until, in July 1910, the Authorities learned that a 
conspiracy had been formed for the purpose of murdering 
the Emperor and all the other members of the Imperial 
House. Bombs loaded with dynamite and placed near loca¬ 
tions where the Emperor often passed were discovered, sev¬ 
eral men were detected who made other arrangements for 
the contemplated murders, and revolutionary literature was 
found which had been printed in the United States, and 
showed that the conspirators were not socialists, but Jap¬ 
anese discontents who opposed their Rulers and their war 
policies. In translation one of their circulars read: 

“The moment has come to advance, and commence 
the attack against the Imperial party. The main culprit 
is the Mikado. He has caused the war against China, 
also against Russia, and finally the injustice against the 
patriotic Koreans. During his rule the widows and or¬ 
phans had become countless, and the number of the 
young men and men of mature age who had been killed 
in those wars was appalling; in fact, there were only 
children and grey-headed men left in Japan, Besides 
that, the condition of the people was unbearable through 
the taxes which the government piled upon them.” 

There were 26 men, including Kotoku, arrested, and in 
December, 1911, tried under the most extraordinary precau¬ 
tions. Any person approaching the Court building where the 
trial was conducted, without having a pass admitting him to 
the same, was arrested and immediately sentenced to impris¬ 
onment. During the trial only a number of selected attor¬ 
neys were admitted to the Court-room, and even the attor¬ 
neys for the defense occasionally excluded. The prisoners 
denied havig planned the murders of which they were ac¬ 
cused, but were otherwise defiant, and consequently all but 
two of their number sentenced to death and decapitated, 


254 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


The whole secretive proceeding of the Court, and the 
literature found with the accused, also the inscriptions on 
their banners at the street demonstration prove that the de¬ 
fendants were political, not social revolutionists who agitated 
under the name of socialists. Kotoku was too intelligent a 
man to believe in the Emperor’s divinity, but was aware that 
the great masses of the people were, through the teaching 
they had all received in the public schools, made to believe 
in it, and thereby brought into political servitude under the 
ruling Samurai. This fraudulent government could best be 
abolished by the removal of the entire Imperial family which 
had to furnish to the Oligarchs the shadow Emperors, in 
whose names they ruled the people, as military despots. 

The decapitation of the leading revolutionists checked the 
public agitation, but it could not be expected to put an end 
to the secretly working dissatisfaction of the overtaxed farm¬ 
ers and the underpaid laborers. They were constantly ap¬ 
proached by a silent but, nevertheless, most forcible agi¬ 
tator who is known to have, time and again, through his 
fierce secret work, dethroned mighty Monarchs and destroyed 
despotic governments. The name of this agitator is “Hun¬ 
ger.” And as it is known to have often, after the Russian 
war, visited the hovels of the members of the poorest classes 
of the population, the danger existed that, in course of time, 
an aversion against the war policies of the government might 
be created which would threaten open rebellion. 

In this emergency their notorious cunning enabled the 
members of the Privy Council to turn the anti-war spirit of 
the dissatisfied people into enthusiastic support of the next 
war which the government is preparing for. Quietly the 
news was spread that Japan’s next war would be waged for 
the main purpose of conquering a vast territory where mil¬ 
lions of acres of fertile land were waiting to be taken pos¬ 
session of by Japanese farmers, and that the immensely rich 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


255 


natural resources of the new Japanese province would fur¬ 
nish well-paid labor to millions of Japanese workmen for 
many years to come. It was related that the enemy to be 
fought is, thanks to the art of Japanese statesmanship, una¬ 
ware of the danger threatening him, and therefore unpre¬ 
pared, and that the conquest of his territory will require no 
serious loss of life on the part of the Japanese. And where 
ever the name of the new enemy is mentioned, and it is told 
how, 60 years ago, he was the first one of the white race 
nations to humiliate weak Japan by forcing upon her unde¬ 
sirable treaties, and that he insults her whole race yet by 
degrading exclusion laws, the race-pride and desire for re¬ 
venge fills the heart of every Japanese, the poorest as well as 
the rich, and makes them bear the burden of taxation needed 
for the war preparations with patriotic composure, while 
waiting impatiently for the commencement of the war from 
which the Oligarchs themselves hope that it will prove the 
superiority of their race to the astonished white race nations, 
and make it the leading world power at least in two Conti¬ 
nents. Extravagant as these hopes appear, their gigantic 
war preparations speak strongly in their favor. 


7. JAPAN’S WAR PREPARATIONS 

The present size of both the Japanese army and navy 
is in the outside world generally much underrated, and prob¬ 
ably not exactly known by any foreign government. There 
are reliable figures to be obtained though of past years, when 
Japan’s Rulers were more inclined to show to the world 
their military and naval strength than they are now in view 
of an approaching war. In 1909 Gen. De Negrier, at the 
time one of the most prominent French military experts, vis¬ 
ited Japan, and thoroughly informed himself about her mili- 


256 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


tary strength. From his reports to his government the fol¬ 
lowing statement was published: 

“At the end of the year 1909 the Japanese military 


forces were as follows: Men 

Annual conscription due. 520,000 

Active army (peace footing). 742,000 

First reserve (veterans). 382,000 

Second reserve. 780,000 

Drilled men of third reserve. 115,000 

Men with elementary practice. 846,000 


Total .3,385,000 


“This would indicate that Japan can mobilize, put 
into the field, and maintain without undue effort, in times 
of war, at least one and one-half million soldiers ” 

That would leave a reserve of one million of drilled 
soldiers to draw from in case of necessity. But those figures 
referred to the year 1909, since when in every year half a mil¬ 
lion men were drafted under the prevailing conscription law. 
By the year 1915 Japan could, consequently, put into the field, 
without any exertion, at least two millions of men with an 
available reserve of two and a half million more of well 
drilled and able-bodied men of less than 40 years of age. 

In comparison to the military forces of the United 
States, Japan’s strength is monstrous, although her present 
territory is only as large as one 13th part of the great Amer¬ 
ican Empire, and her population but a trifle more than half 
as big. The strength of the American army which has to 
defend immense coast and boundary lines was given, in April, 
1914, to Congress by Gen. Leonard Wood, Chief of the Gen¬ 
eral Staff of the army. He stated that there were ready for 
service of the regulars, besides 13,000 men engaged in the 
Coast Artillery, 51,000 soldiers. The organized militia had 
112,000 men, of which 7,200 belonged to the hospital corps. 
To bring the regulars and militia up to the war-footing, the 
General stated, there would be needed 152,000 men, besides 










257 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

90,000 later on to take the place of dead and wounded. The 
entire regular and militia force would thus amount to 350,000 
men. Any more troops needed would have to be volunteers. 

It may here also be mentioned that it is not only in fight¬ 
ing men, that the United States army is “short,” but the 
“Army and Navy Journal” stated at the time of Gen. Woods’ 
report, that the Mexican government has 253 pieces of mod¬ 
ern field artillery, less the unknown small number captured 
lately by the rebels. The United States army possesses alto¬ 
gether only ninety-six modern field guns. The “Journal” fur¬ 
ther states that even for this limited number of guns there is 
a serious lack of ammunition, and that it will take some time 
before an adequate supply can be secured. Congress is 
blamed for these deficiencies, according to the “Jounral” 
which asserts that the above mentioned facts have been com¬ 
municated to Congress during several sessions, including the 
last one, but no remedial action obtained until after the late 
capture of Vera Cruz. 

On the water Japan’s armaments are forming a great 
naval power which is increased every year since the Russian 
war, during' which its ships had only a displacement of 257,- 
000 tons, but were able to destroy the entire Russian navy. 
At the end of the year 1909 the Japanese had, in vessels over 
1,000 tons and torpedo-boats over 50 tons, a total displace¬ 
ment of 493,371 tons, besides two Dreadnoughts of 21,000 
tons each, and one of 19,000 tons which were yet building, 
while two Dreadnought-size cruisers, of 18,700 tons each, 
were projected. But, in 1911, this program was suddenly, 
and without any reason being given, changed. Chief Admiral 
Iniouye publicly declared in January of that year: 

“It is necessary that the Japanese navy be as large, 

and strong, as that of the United States.” 

As he was one of the Samurai who had helped to estab¬ 
lish the presently ruling Oligarchy, and to adopt the anti- 


258 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

foreign and war policy of ’69, the sudden increase of the 
Japanese navy must be considered as having been dictated 
by that policy; a conclusion which is fully supported by the 
fact that Japan’s navy was not, as announced by the Admiral, 
to be made equal to the American one, but almost doubly 
as strong. This was made possible by the introduction in 
the European fleets of the Superdreadnought type of war¬ 
ships, whose enormous size enabled them to carry bigger 
guns, an heavier armor, and have an higher speed than all 
the warships previously built, and made the smaller ships, 
even the Dreadnoughts of less tonnage, more or less useless 
in the great naval battles of the future. Japan’s government 
granted an appropriation of 175 millions of dollars for the 
purpose of building, instead of the two projected Dread¬ 
nought Cruisers of 18,700 tons each, no less than 22 Super¬ 
dreadnoughts, five of which were to be of 28,000 tons each, 
seven of 30,000 tons, and the other ten of an undetermined 
size which was, however, to be greater than that of any 
other ship built. The first eight of these sea-monsters should 
be ready by 1915, the time when the Panama Canal was ex¬ 
pected to be opened, and the other 14 by 1919. 

At the time when this extraordinary increase of Japan's 
navy was ordered, there existed in Washington, D. C., the 
same confidence in the friendship of Japan for the United 
States, as at the Korean Court, a few years before, the belief 
had existed in the “sincere friendship” of Japan for the 
Korean Emperor, which made him sign the treacherous treaty 
prepared by the Samurai, Count lto. But what the Ameri¬ 
can government and Congress did not seem to notice about 
Japan’s gigantic naval war preparations, a newspaper, the 
“Washington Post,” perceived and expressed as follows in 
November, 1911: 

“What does Japan mean by providing for the 
building of 22 Superdreadnoughts? Already she had 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


259 


made provision for a more powerful fleet than ours to 
be in commission in 1915 when the Panama Canal shall 
have been formally opened to traffic! Why now this 
increased allowance of 175 millions of dollars for the 
next seven years? Japan has adopted a policy of rigid 
economy in all other departments but the navy, in order, 
as it would appear, to enable her to swell her outlay for 
fighting ships to the highest possible figure! Really, 
Japan is leading all the powers in the item of bigness. 
Just at present the Japanese fleet is inferior to ours, but 
in three years from now the preponderance of fighting 
ability will be on her side with, at least, eight super¬ 
dreadnoughts in line to our four, at most! The next 
four years are to see the other fourteen sea-monsters 
got ready for eventualities!” 

The Japanese program has, so far, been carried out. 
Six of the projected Superdreadnoughts are either building 
or already built, and two more will follow so that eight of 
these ships will, by 1915, be ready for service. They will 
have 230,000 tons displacement against the 140,000 tons of 
the five American ships of the same type now in course of 
construction. The American official report about the size 
and details of this class of ships not being complete, the 
statement of the yard of Vickers, Maxim & Son in Furness, 
England, where two of them are building, and one was 
launched in May, 1912, may here be added: 

“On May 18th the new Japanese battle cruiser 
Kongo was launched. It belongs to the English ‘Lion’ 
type, has 27,000 tons displacement, 70,000 horsepower, 
a length of 704 feet, and a speed of 28 nautical miles. 
Of its 24 guns the eight 14-inch ones belong to the 
largest ever mounted on a ship. The cost of this sea- 
monster'is 12j4 million dollars (American money).” 

It is not in Superdreadnoughts alone that Japan’s gov¬ 
ernment is endeavoring to surpass the American navy; also 
in the number of officers and men has Japan already left it 
behind, as shown by the following list of comparison pub- 


260 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


lished by the “Office of Naval Intelligence” of Washington, 
D. C., on April 1, 1913. 

“Admiral of the fleet: Japan, 1; the United States, 
also 1 (counting the rank held by Dewey as the equiva¬ 
lent of the admiral of the fleet). 

“Admirals: Japan, 17; the U. S., none. 

“Vice Admirals: Japan, 17; the U. S., none. 

“Rear Admirals: Japan, 45; the U. S., 24. 

“Captains and Commanders: Japan, 292; the U. S., 

212 . 

“Other line officers: Japan, 1818; the U. S., 1471. 

“Midshipmen at Sea : Japan, 154; the U. S., none. 

“Engineer Officers: Japan, 683; the U. S., none 
(because line officers in the American navy stand engi¬ 
neering watch, as well as doing deck duty). 

“Warrant Officers: Japan, 1520; the U. S., 697. 

“Medical Officers: Japan, 368; the U. S., 317. 

“Pay Officers: Japan, 341 ; the U. S., 221. 

“Enlisted Men: Japan, 42,043; the U. S., 47,469. 

“Chaplains: Japan, none; the U. S., 23. 

“Marine Officers: Japan, none; the U. S., 316. 

“Marines enlisted: Japan, none; the U. S., 9866.” 

The deficiency of Japan’s marines and sailors shown on 
this list is misleading. Marines are not employed on their 
ships at all, the sailors do all the fighting; and of the latter 
Japan has, through the conscription law that keeps every 
sailor, as well as the soldiers, in the reserve until his fortieth 
year of life, hundreds of thousands of reserve sailors, while 
the United States has no reserve at all. 

These quotations from official American sources prove 
that Japan is the greatest naval power on the Pacific Ocean, 
excluding England, her ally; but whether, therewith, her 
full strength has been given, is more than doubtful. The 
Director of the “Naval Intelligence Office” states in the pref¬ 
ace to his publication: 

“It is possible that inaccuracies may occur in these 
reports, for the reason that few countries besides the 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


261 


United States publish all the data concerning their fight¬ 
ing strength, and even greater efforts are being made 

abroad to maintain secrecy.” 

This is true of no nation more than of Japan. She is 
the only power which closes her navy yards to the public. 
What is being done there in the construction of small war- 
vessels, such as torpedo-boats, torpedo-boat destroyers, and 
especially submarines, is not known. The latter class of 
marine craft has, of late years, been so greatly improved in 
size, armament and sea-going qualities, that they have become 
an important kind of warship, as proven in the present 
European war. 

The latest submarines built in Europe are, in almost 
every important regard entirely different from the first ones 
invented and built in the United States. They are given a 
displacement of as much as 1,200 tons, with a speed, when not 
submerged, of 20 nautical miles an hour, and a radius of 
action of 3,000 miles. Their size and speed enables them to 
make long voyages without auxiliary ships. In 1911 three 
of the English submarines made the trip from England to 
Hongkong in China, unaccompanied the greater part of the 
way. When submerged the modern submarines can travel 
at the speed of 12 knots, and a distance of 100 miles before 
having to come to the surface. The original one torpedo 
tube given the first boats has been supplanted by 4 to 7; and 
a quick-firing gun has been added which lies in front of the 
conning tower, and has, on a small scale, the improvements 
of the disappearing guns used in fortifications. Its missile 
has a reach of more than 2 miles. Japan, whose insular 
location compels her, in any war of offense to invade for¬ 
eign countries, needs fleets of these modern submarines as 
much as Superdreadnoughts. And if her Rulers have failed 
secretly to build them, it will be contrary to the cunning 


262 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

and careful warfare of the Samurai in ancient and modern 
times. 

But it seems certain that Japan has thus secretly 
strengthened her naval war preparations before the con¬ 
struction of her Superdreadnoughts, when the firm belief is 
considered which men of the highest standing in the govern¬ 
ment openly express, that as early as 1911 their navy was 
already stronger than that of the United States. One instance 
of that kind may serve to prove this assertion. In Septem¬ 
ber of 1911, Count Yanagisawa, a leading member of the 
Upper House of the Japanese Parliament which is always 
the firm supporter of the Samurai Oligarchs, visited, together 
with Dr. Washitaro Nagashiwa, a member of the Lower 
House, an European city, where they were interviewed, at 
length, about the relations of Japan with Russia, and the 
United States. Although the two Japanese legislators were 
leaders of opposition parties, they agreed in their views on 
the subject on which they were questioned. Regarding Rus¬ 
sia they spoke freely and friendly; but when asked about the 
possibility of a war with the United States, the Count became, 
evasive and said: 

“War costs money, money, money, and it injures 
economically even the victor, as we have experienced 
in the war with China. That answers your question 
regarding the United States. We want nothing more 
than rest; and, therefore, I think we will have it. For 
the United States would hardly, notwithstanding any¬ 
thing and everything, feel inclined to commence hostili¬ 
ties. Of course, the Americans have more money than 
we, but they surely can not reach up to our army and 
navy.” 

But, while there may be doubts on that subject, it is 
an undeniable fact that Japan has, with great expense and 
energy, built up a powerful commercial fleet, mainly for the 
purpose of it becoming an auxiliary to the navy in case of 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 263 

war. Private individuals and corporations were encouraged, 
during the last 30 years, to build mercantile vessels, and 
endeavor to take the Pacific trade away from the American 
and European ships and traders. In return the government 
paid the ship-owners subsidies and, otherwise, favored them 
where it was possible. In this manner, at the end of 1913, 
Japan had obtained a commercial fleet of nearly 200 steamers 
with a total displacement of 1,000,000 tons, also sailing ships 
of thousands of tons and many native craft of all kinds. 
For every steamship of iron or steel of 700 tons or more the 
government pays the ship-owner a subsidy for a certain 
number of years. Such vessels will be employed, in case 
of war, as government transports or cruisers. 

To this class of ships belong most of the 100 steamers 
of the Japan Mail Steamship Co. (Nippon Yusen Kaisha) 
with a total displacement of 400,000 tons to which will 
shortly be added twelve more vessels already building, three 
of which are to be of 12,000 tons each, one of 10,000, and 
the other eight of 7,500 tons each. Among the older ships 
are 26 twin-screw steamships of from 5,800 to 8,500 tons 
each. The owner of these steamers, the above named com¬ 
pany, ranks with the largest on Earth; there is no American 
Steamship Co. equalling it. The Japanese merchant fleet 
has done its best to capture the Pacific trade, and is already 
injuring the foreign shippers so much that bitter feeling 
has been created among English merchants, one of whom 
expressed himself, not long ago, at a public occasion, as 
follows on the subject: 

“Every loan made by England to Japan is now 
equivalent to furnishing Japan with a knife to cut the 
throats of the British Far-Eastern traders.” 

But Japanese ship-owners also complain that, through the 
low prices they often have to take to obtain the trade, they 
are losing money. Yet their government is urging them to 


264 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

keep on, and helps them out in various ways; because it 
expects, sooner or later, the whole foreign competition to be 
driven from the Pacific, and the entire trade to be handled by 
Japanese ships. This would in a war between Japan and the 
United States be a great injury to the latter which, having 
no merchant marine suitable for war purposes, would be de¬ 
pendent upon foreign ships whose absence from the Pacific 
Ocean could therefore not fail to cripple the American army 
and navy most seriously, a circumstance foreseen by the 
Japanese Rulers. 

The difference between the steady increase of foreign 
shipping, among others that of Japan, in waters adjacent to 
the United States, and the want of progress in the latter’s 
commercial fleet, formed, in November, 1911, the subject 
of earnest discussion at the meeting of the Manufacturers’ 
Export Association at New York. It was brought out from 
statistics about the subsidies paid by the governments of 
prominent nations that Japan ranked as the third highest 
in the list with a yearly subsidy of $5,413,700.00 paid to her 
commercial .shipping in 1910. And the United States was the 
lowest on the list, with a yearly premium of $162,628.00 paid 
to certain American ships in the same year under the postal 
subsidy act of 1891! 

It has been no secret, since several years, that Japan 
has captured the trade between North America and East 
Asia. In August, 1896, the first ship of the before mentioned 
“Nippon Yusen Kaisha” anchored, the first time, in Seattle. 
Since then the Japanese steamships of that and other lines 
have crowded out the giant ships of the “Great Northern 
Railroad Co.,” the “Pacific Mail” steamers of the Harriman 
interests, the “Boston Steamship Company,” and the fleet of 
the “Canadian Pacific Railroad Co.” Even the “Peninsular 
and Oriental Steamship Co.,” the most prominent English 
navigation firm which, during 50 years past, has sent her 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


265 


vessels to Japan, to run from there to China, Korea, Austra¬ 
lia, India, and England, has a few years ago acknowledged 
that Japanese steamers have taken the “P. & O. Co.’s” trade. 
And the American “Oceanic Steamship Co.” has had a sim¬ 
ilar experience. 

It must be acknowledged, though, that the subsidy paid 
the Japanese ship owners has not been the only factor to 
bring about this change in the Pacific Ocean trade. There 
are cheaper ships built in Japan, and cheaper wages paid to 
the ships’ crews, than in any other country. The average 
wages of $30.00 per month paid on American ships are 
three times as high as those paid on Japanese vessels, and 
the board the crew and officers get on the latter are not half 
as expensive as the board on Ameeican and English ships. 
The Japanese government also knew how- to get cheap ships. 
It assisted the ship-yard owners financially, as it did the ship¬ 
owners. And the cheap wages paid the laborers, combined 
with the cheap lumber out of Japan’s virgin forests, pro¬ 
duced ships at such a low cost price, that neither the highly 
protected United States, nor free trade England can compete 
with Japanese ship-building. 

Japan’s government was also not slow in the establish-* 
ment of a commercial fleet. In view of the next war it was 
planning, as soon as the Russian war was over, it pushed the 
building of a merchant marine beyond the needs of the trade. 
While some of the great steamship companies are flourishing, 
there were and are now many ship-owners in Japan who 
thrive more by the subsidy they are getting than by the low- 
price shipping they are doing. That this is true is proved 
by the fact that in 1910 the government paid for ship sub¬ 
sidies 5 • millions dollars, while the dividends these ships 

paid to their owners amounted to only 1J4 million dollars. 
The ruling Samurai are too intelligent not to see that such a 
state of affairs must finally lead to national bankruptcy. But 


266 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

they are planning for a big war again, and need the merchant 
ships as auxiliaries to the navy to transport troops, artillery, 
ammunition, provisions and all the other things needed to 
invade another country with perhaps a million of men or 
more. For the only people the Japanese can approach by 
rand, the Russians, have become their allies, and Japan’s next 
war must, therefore, be one across the sea. 

Japan’s Samurai Rulers are professional warriors who 
take well care to prepare, ahead of time, everything to make 
the war they plan a success. Since the 12th century warring 
has been the business for which they were schooled and prac¬ 
tically trained, nor have they forgotten it since learning the 
modern science of war. They have brilliantly proved that 
in their war with Russia and China. When Japan, a country 
of 35 millions of inhabitants, attacked the Chinese empire 
with a population of 350 millions, the world saw with sur¬ 
prise, how the little clever Japanese transported with ships 
they had built and bought ahead of time for that very pur¬ 
pose, two army corps, comprising 160,000 soldiers with their 
full equipment, including horses and artillery, across the sea 
to points on the Chinese Coast, that were far distant 
from each other. The transportation, commissariat, ambu¬ 
lance, and hospital department of the two armies were man¬ 
aged without any excitement, confusion, or miscalculation 
in the invaded country, and crowned the difficult military 
undertaking with success. At the same time, Japan’s new 
navy, the first one she had since the end of the 16th century, 
was composed of 23 ships, manned and officered by none but 
Japanese. They invaded the Chinese waters, attacked the 
hostile men-of-war in difficult places, and either captured or 
sunk every one of them, although they were all of superior 
tonnage and armament. And not a solitary Japanese ship was 
lost, nor did the two armies lose a battle. Japan won the 
Chinese war gloriously, because she had made all necessary 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


267 


preparations for it, principally among which was the pos¬ 
session of a sufficiently large merchant marine. Her Rulers 
had prepared everything equally well for the Russian war, 
and with equal success. They are spending, presently, mil¬ 
lions of dollars borrowed for the purpose of succeeding no 
less gloriously in their next war, and the subsidies paid to 
their ship owners are part of the money thus invested.* 

In the line of aeronautics the Japanese have privately 
not done nearly as much as the majority of the foreign 
nations ; their climate with the suddenly changing winds not 
being suitable to that kind of sport. Yet their government 
has taken care to keep, even in that regard, step with Japan's 
neighbors. Of the cheap military and naval aeroplanes she 
has twenty, and the United States possesses twenty-five. But 
of the highly expensive and most useful military dirigibles 
with wich every European country is supplying itself, the 
American government is in possession of One which, as the 
“Office of Naval Intelligence” states, “is entirely useless.” 
Nor has it ordered a new one. Japan has, according to the 


* Footnote: Some time before this writing an incident happened which 
shows the advantage of Japan’s policy of building up a big merchant marine 
which will furnish in case of war the needed transports, and the disadvantage 
to the United States of not having merchant ships which can be used for the 
army and navy transports. In April, 1914, the government wanted to send 4500 
soldiers from Galveston to Vera Cruz, but had not the necessary ships to trans¬ 
port the soldiers, nor Congressional sanction to hire any. Consequently only 
part of the detachment was shipped. A Pacific Coast newspaper made the fol¬ 
lowing remarks about the occurrence: 

“Suppose this government had been compelled to move 200,000, or even 
500,000, men a distance, not two or three days’ steaming, but of two oi 
three weeks—how would it meet the problem? 

“If Britaih, Germany, France, or Japan desired to move 500,000 men, 
they could command tiiei. services of fast modern carriers sufficient to 
handle even such a tremendous army and its equipment. 

“If the United States were confronted with the same problem it would 
have to go into the open market and do as it did in the Spanish War— 
purchase vessels at exorbitant prices or lease them from foreign owners.” 
In this striking criticism of the helpless condition of the American govern¬ 
ment in case of a big war, the newspaper man who wrote it made one mistake. 
He did not know that Japan is driving, since years, all the foreign merchant 
vessels from the Pacific Ocean, so that the United States will not be able to 
lease or buy any, unless they are brought thousands of miles from the Atlantic 
Ocean or European waters, which will take months, and give the Japanese 
government sufficient time to land a million of its soldiers at any part of the 
Pacific Coast of the United States. It is, therefore, no exaggeration, but the 
plain truth, to say that the unprepared ness for war of the American Pacific 
States, and especially of Alaska, invites an hostile invasion.—(The Author.) 



268 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


same source of information, (( tzvo military dirigibles on 
hand, and one more ordered!” 


8. JAPAN WILL HAVE WAR, BUT NOT WITH RUSSIA 

The tremendous increases of Japan’s military and naval 
forces which her Rulers have made since the Russian war 
without regard to the heavy burden of taxation thereby 
placed upon their poor people, are in strict accordance with 
the anti-foreign and war policy which has guided the gov¬ 
ernment since 1869. It has caused the wars against China 
and Russia, both of which were forced upon those countries 
by Japan for the purpose of conquest. But they were also, 
more or less, experiments to convince the Samurai Oligarchs 
that they had succeeded in “learning the drill and tactics of 
the foreign nations.” And being satisfied with the result of 
their 40 years’ labor to become a modern military and naval 
power, inferior only to the few greatest ones of the world, 
they stand ready to fulfill their policy by “going abroad, to 
make war, and conquer lands in foreign countries, that we 
can give to the soldiers.” 

And the time has come when the Japanese government 
must act upon that self-imposed promise, because the peo¬ 
ple’s endurance has, of late, been strained to the limit, as is 
proven by the Kotoku agitation, or rather rebellion, which has 
only been smothered by the promise secretly made by the 
confidants of the Samurai Rulers that wealth and prosperity 
would reward the people’s patience and loyalty in the coming 
war. There is no country besides Japan, where the people 
can be thus secretly informed; but the Samurai offspring 
count millions of members of their class, most of whom are 
aware of the government’s war policies, and they can easily 
divulge as much as is necessary to the lower classes of the 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 269 

population, whose inborn secretiveness and patriotism pre¬ 
vents a betrayal to any foreigner. 

The only questions about the coming war remaining to 
be solved by the outside world are: Against whom may the 
hostile intention of the Japanese government be directed? 
And when may the planned hostilities be commenced? As 
to the first question, since Japan’s war against Russia the 
general belief has prevailed, especially in Europe, but also 
in the United States, that she wants to conquer Siberia and 
intends, together with the Mongolians, Tartars, and other 
people of China and India, to establish in Northern Asia a 
great world power of the Yellow Race. But representative 
Japanese publicists and statesmen have, since years, denied 
that such a scheme exists. Baron Suyematsu, a Samurai 
and political adherent and literary mouthpiece of the Ruling 
Powers, has expressed himself on that subject in a very in¬ 
genious manner in a statement which reads as follows: 

“There are some who accuse Japan as the probable 
organizers of the ‘Pan-Asiatic Peril’. Peace-loving as 
the Japanese are, the characteristics, notions and feel¬ 
ings of the Japanese and the Chinese are so entirely 
different that there is no possibility of their complete 
amalgamation in one common cause, and what is true 
of China holds even more true with regard to other 
Asiatic peoples. Japan aspires to elevate herself to the 
same plane, and to press onward in the same path of 
civilization, as the countries of the West. Even in every 
day matters one likes to choose good company, so as not 
to estrange his best friends. Can anyone imagine that 
Japan would like to organize a Pan-Asiatic agitation of 
her own seeking, in which she must take so many dif¬ 
ferent people into her confidence and company—people 
with whom she has no joint interests, or any community 
of thought and feeling? How can it be expected for 
one moment that the various peoples of the East of 
Asia, with their varying degrees of intelligence, their 
conflicting interests, and their old standing feuds and 


270 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

jealousies, could ever have cohesian enough to range 

themselves under one banner against the powers of the 

Occident 1” 

Ingenious as Suyematsu’s statement is, it is not quite 
truthful when it refers to “J a P an ’ s love of peace,” and to her 
desire to be a civilized country like the Western ones. But 
what he set out to prove is true nevertheless. The treaty 
made, in July 1912, between Russia and Japan settled the 
question. Although that treaty is not an alliance for offense 
and defense, so much is certain that the two countries have 
come to a full understanding regarding their respective 
spheres of influence in the Northern Provinces of China 
which removes any present cause of friction between them. 
Japan obtains the control of the South part of Manchuria 
and Central Mongolia, while Russia gets the Northerly part 
of those two Chinese provinces, China being too weak to 
object against the arrangement. 

This treaty caused relief in Europe, where the invasions 
of the Mongolian-Tartars under Ghenghis Khan and Tamer¬ 
lane have never been forgotten. Japan’s increased arma¬ 
ments after Russia’s defeat were not taken by the Euro¬ 
peans as being preparations of defense against the United 
States; for nobody in Europe, who knows anything about 
the American people and their foreign policies, could believe 
that they ever did plan a war against Japan. To the con¬ 
trary, it was thought that the Japanese want more war, and 
might endeavor to repeat the invasion of the thirteenth cen¬ 
tury when Genghis Khan, starting near the Pacific Coast in 
East Asia, traversed the whole continent, and did not stop on 
his westward march until checked near the German Town of 
Lignitz. 

Japan’s treaty with Russia shows that she has no inten¬ 
tions to fight the West Asiatics; but that she harbors, jointly 
with Russia, unfriendly feelings against her neighbor across 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 271 

the Pacific Ocean, the United States, was well explained by 
a Russian correspondent of a prominent New York news¬ 
paper, in August, 1912, thus: 

“Japan and Russia are joining hands and pooling 
interests. Henceforth they may be looked upon and 
must be dealt with as the political syndicate of the 
Pacific. They intend to regulate the destiny of the Far 
Eastern nations in harmony with their own special 
interests in the first place, and as far as possible with 
the interest of third parties afterward. 

“Both powers see in the United States a grave dan¬ 
ger to their supremacy. Commercial and industrial in¬ 
terpenetration of the Far East was the policy of the 
United .States, and was bound to be successful, if Japan 
and Russia kept apart. It could and would be thwarted 
if they combined to withstand it. And seeing their inter¬ 
ests, they resolved to further it. That was the main 
motive of their approachment. 

“When Secretary of State Knox came forward 
with his proposal for the neutralization of. Manchuria, 
he literally drove Japan and Russia into each others 
arms. The abrogation of the treaty between the United 
States and Russia, and the demand that the latter should 
modify her passport laws in order to admit America’s 
Jewish citizens, completed the work. Today Japan and 
Russia are united. 

“Russia is today as much in earnest as Nippon. 
She will stand by her neighbor, who is to all intents and 
purposes her ally. She will resent interference in the 
Far East on the part of any power or powers that may 
cross her path there. Japan will do the same, and each 
will uphold the other!’ 

The Russian correspondent explains what Russia ex¬ 
pects to get out of her treaty; but he fails to tell all that 
Japan intends to reap from it. She does not want war with 
Russia, that is certain. Nor will she fight China, but take 
her share out of the breaking-up Empire peaceably, because 
Russia and Japan cannot be resisted by the young and weak 


27 2 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


Chinese Republic. -But that is not all Japan has obtained 
Russia’s good will and friendship for. Before fighting Rus¬ 
sia, Japan had formed an alliance with England. Lest in 
her next fight, she may be attacked by Russia, she has made 
a treaty of amity with her. That treaty finally proves that 
Japan’s future war is not to be waged in Asia. 


9. JAPAN WANTS TO FIGHT THE UNITED STATES 

The war policy of Japan has, so far, only been a partial 
success. The wars with Russia and China brought her 
much glory and the certainty that her army and navy were 
fully equal to those of the white race nations. But the fail¬ 
ure to get a financial indemnity from Russia, and the cost of 
the new war preparations made since the end of the Russian 
war, have loaded Japan with a debt under which her gov¬ 
ernment must break down, unless it gets relief in the near 
future. The country is overpopulated, it cannot any longer 
support the people’s yearly increase of one million souls, and 
pay the enormous taxes levied for the increase of the army 
and navy. This condition has not been much alleviated by 
the conquest of Korea, because the best part of that country 
is already occupied, while the improvement of the other part 
is costly. And Japan has no capital to invest. She was 
financially crippled before the Russian war to such an extent 
that Capt. Brinkley, the journalistic representative of the 
government, could write, in 1901: 

“Japan would go far, if she were not crippled by 
a heavy handicap —want of money. She has been called 
the ‘England of the East’, but she differs radically from 
England in this vital respect, that whereas Imperial Eng¬ 
land has only to follow whither the capital of commercial 
and industrial England overflows, industrial Japan is 
quite unable to utilize the opportunities which Imperial 
Japan creates. In China and Korea Japanese diplomacy 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


273 


or Japanese armed strength has won valuable privileges 
and opened wide fields* but they remain to this day 
almost entirely unfruitful. Even in the home country 
the development of many promising enterprises is de¬ 
layed by lack of funds. Everything is on a petty scale. 
There is not, throughout the length and breadth of the 
land, a factory or a tradal organization that would be 
counted of even mediocre importance in America 01 
England. The aggregate capital invested in all the banks, 
industrial, commercial, insurance, shipping, and agricul¬ 
tural companies throughout the Empire is less than the 
fortunes of a Rockefeller or a Vanderbilt. So Lillipu¬ 
tian are the dimensions of the market that a single specu¬ 
lation disturbs it. The spirit of enterprise, stinted by 
that atmosphere of impecuniosity at home, naturally 
makes no excursions abroad. Railways wait in vain to 
be built by Japanese in Korea, new settlements to be 
colonized in China, large resources to be exploited in 
Formosa. 

“The people, also, according to the writings of the 
vernacular journals, with few exceptions, instead of 
making opportunities for themselves, look to have them 
made for them officially. If they had stores of spare 
capital seeking investment, they would act a very dif¬ 
ferent part on the neighboring continent. But chill pov¬ 
erty freezes the current of their activity, and while they 
have an abundance of the Samurai instinct, they lack the 
means of making it potential. That difficulty must crip¬ 
ple Japan seriously. A poor nation never has been 
great. She may succeed in filling her purse before the 
time comes to open it, but no resources now in sight 
definitely promise such a result. All that can be said 
of her is that she has boundless ambition; that she has 
established her ability to reach great ends, and that she 
will certainly bid for a higher place than she has yet 
attained.” 

That was written before the Russian war; and the truth 
of that wail about Japan’s poverty cannot be doubted. Since 
then the country has got nearly a billion dollars more in 


274 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


debt, through the cost of that war, and the steadily continued 
increase of her army and navy. And the situation has been 
aggravated by the restrictions placed upon the immigration of 
Japanese farmers and workmen in the United States and 
Canada. To extricate Japan from her present financial dif¬ 
ficulties by a war seems to be a difficult task. It can not be 
a war like the one with Russia, which cost Japan nearly 
two million dollars every day. It must be a conquest of some 
rich territory which will pay for the cost of the invasion and 
give Japan an handsome income from the new province imme¬ 
diately. The Samurai had studied, since 1853, the history 
of foreign nations and learnt from it, to their surprise, how 
the Europeans have, since the discovery of America through 
Columbus, conquered the American Continents. The money 
spent in the wars was insignificant compared to the great 
treasures gained in gold and silver, and the immense terri¬ 
tories the Europeans obtained by their conquests. And it 
was but natural that the Japanese very eagerly sought for 
some country they could conquer in the same manner. They 
found what they needed, and what they wanted on the North 
American Continent, all along the Pacific Coast from the 
tropics up to the icy fields of the North. 

Every Japanese, educated or ignorant, of high or low 
rank, who landed in any of the territory on the Pacific slope 
of the United States and Canada, has looked at it with 
covetous eyes ever since. The beautiful climate, the bound¬ 
less tracts of fertile land, the immense forests with the great¬ 
est and most useful trees on Earth, the abundance of the most 
valuable minerals, from coal up to gold, including the sub¬ 
terranean oil, all of which the Japanese found in North 
America, delighted them, and created their desire to obtain 
that territory or some of it, by peaceful settlement, or con¬ 
quest through war. In millions of Japanese households, from 
the palaces of the highest nobles to the shacks of the Coolies, 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 275 

the North American Continent has formed the theme of dis¬ 
cussion for years. 

When gradually the people learnt that one part of North 
America could not be assailed because England’s great fleets 
of Dreadnoughts protected it, and that Mexico is inhabited 
by race relatives of the Asiatics, the United States territory 
on the Pacific Coast became the cynosure of the whole Jap¬ 
anese people, and the desire that they should possess that 
country, sooner or later, grew to be a fixed idea with the 
common classes. The ruling Oligarchs, of course, were well 
aware of the people’s wishes, and allowed them to leave 
Japan by the thousands, to settle on the American Pacific 
Coast, until the population of California which had, some 
years before, been compelled to ward ofif a Chinese invasion, 
objected, and the U. S. government restricted the Japanese 
invasion with the evident intention of limiting it, in course 
of time, to traders and travelers. 

This was a severe shock to the common people of Japan, 
but not to the ruling Oligarchs who had foreseen it, and 
taken their measures accordingly. They knew the immense 
wealth of the Pacific Coast States and Provinces of North 
America long before the Japanese immigrants did, and 
weighed the chances of ever getting possession of it, very 
carefully. They knew, better than any foreigner, the weak¬ 
ness of their own country when compared to the strength 
of the gigantic American Republic; they knew their own 
poverty and the wealth of the United States; they knew the 
population of the latter to be almost doubly as numerous as 
their own. And they were not blind to the fact that the out¬ 
side world would consider the idea of Japan waging war 
against the great American nation, for the purpose of con¬ 
quering part of the American territory, as ludicrous in the 
highest degree. But the former low-class Samurai who now 
control their country’s destiny are not only fierce warriors, 


276 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

but also skillful schemers and intriguers, as they have proven 
in the Russian war. They have, long since, come to the con¬ 
clusion that they can and will vanquish the Americans, as 
they did the Chinese and Russians. And they have various 
feasible reasons for that belief. 

The unpreparedness of the United States which is per¬ 
haps better known in Japan’s war department than in the 
government offices in Washington, invites an invasion of the 
Pacific Coast States. Another circumstance promising suc¬ 
cess to the Japanese is, that there is one particular territory 
they wish to conquer which is wholly undefended and can 
be taken by a bold stroke at the proper time without firing a 
shot or losing a man. And when once in the possession of 
the invaders it will offer almost unsurmountable difficulties 
to the Americans to reconquer it. But the principal feature 
of the war in favor of the Japanese government is that their 
new province will, immediately, give remunerative employ¬ 
ment to hundreds of thousands of the Japanese, thereby bet¬ 
tering the financial condition of the people, and furnishing 
the government the necessary money to carry on the war 
without running Japan any more into debt. These advan¬ 
tages which the common people can readily understand, as 
soon as the name of the territory to be invaded. is made 
known, will not fail to produce the greatest’ enthusiasm with 
all the classes of the Japanese people, which, added to the 
hatred and revenge they have nourished since years against 
the Americans, assures the Ruling Powers that they will tire 
out the United States,' and remain the victors and in pos¬ 
session of the conquered territory. 

10. WHY JAPAN’S RULING CLASSES HATE THE WHITE 
RACE PEOPLES 

It is not known to the American people • that there is 
any hostile feeling against them in Japan, and it is therefore 


277 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

necessary to show the cause of it. The political events which 
convulsed Japan in the 16th and 17th centuries furnish the 
key to the understanding why the European and North 
American white race nations are hated intensely by the ruling 
classes of Japan’s population, while the modern history of the 
country gives the causes of the revengeful feeling of the 
entire nation. 

In 1542 Portuguese merchant ships came to Japan and 
obtained from the Authorities permission to trade with the 
people. In 1549 the traders were followed by a number of 
priests who belonged to the newly organized “Society of 
Jesus” and, as Jesuit fathers, commenced at once an ener¬ 
getic religious campaign, which .was highly successful. As 
in the first centuries after the preaching of Christianity by 
the Apostle Paul, his doctrine of. resurrection and life in 
another world brought many thousands of the unfortunates 
who had, through the constant wars of that time, been torn 
away from their homes, relatives, and friends, into the Chris¬ 
tian fold—so in Japan where, during the hundreds of years 
of the civil wars, famine, sickness, and death had been 
brought to millions of people, the promise of the priests that 
the believers would after this life enter a paradise where 
endless peace and happiness were prevailing, caused many 
natives to accept the gospel of Christ. Besides that, Nobu- 
naga, the ruling military man, looked favorably upon the new 
religion, because he wanted opposition to Buddhism on 
account of the political activities of its priests and feuda¬ 
tories; while the national Cult of Shintoism had, through 
the low condition of the Mikado’s Courts, lost a great deal 
of its hold on the people. Christianity, the new religion of 
peace, love and good will to all, found therefore ready access 
to the hearts of the common people. 

But, according to Japanese sources of information, it 
seems that their great success in converting the natives made 


278 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

some of the “Fathers'’ overzealous; they were accused of 
having, for the benefit of the converts, turned their Shinto 
temples into Christian chapels, and through other similar 
actions given offense to the Shinto high priests at the Court. 
The priests complained to the military Authorities who for¬ 
bade any further Christian agitation, but did not enforce 
their command severely. Exaggerated reports of this opposi- 
iton to Christianity reached Spain and her colonies, and 
caused a number of Franciscan Friars who were in the 
Philippine Islands, to accompany a Spanish Envoy who was 
on his way to Japan. At their arrival, they were warned 
by the Jesuits to be careful not to arouse the hostility of the 
ruling military men; but the Friars were too zealous to 
preach the Gospel of Christ to the multitudes of heathen 
natives, to follow the advice given. The result was, that 
another more severe order from the same Authorities was 
issued against the Christian missionary work. 

It seems that quarrels between the members of the 
two Christian orders followed; but nevertheless both of 
them kept on preaching, because Shogun Iyeyasu who ruled 
supremely, since the year 1600, was not inclined to treat 
the Europeans harshly. But when, in 1611, Dutch, and, in 
1613, English, traders appeared on the scene, the situation 
soon became changed. The late comers not only disliked the 
competition of the Portuguese traders, but also their reli¬ 
gion. At that time—the commencement of the 17th century 
—there prevailed in the Northern countries of Europe a 
very hostile feeling against the Catholic Church; and the 
sudden change in Japan, in the Shogun’s government, from 
a spirit of toleration to a fierce persecution of the Spanish 
and Portuguese priests and even their traders, following 
soon after the arrival of the Dutch and English traders, ren¬ 
ders it probable, as some writers assert, that the latter had 
clandestinely agitated, and prejudiced the Japanese Rulers 
against the Catholics; while later information which the 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


279 


Shogun received from Japanese spies sent to Europe may- 
have determined him to eradicate every trace of Christianity 
in Japan, so that it could not be resurrected under any of 
his successors. 

An “Imperial Rescript” issued, for that purpose, in 1614, 
by Shogun Hidetada ordained that thereafter no teaching or 
preaching of the Christian doctrines be permitted; that no 
Christian religionists of any nationality be allowed to land in 
Japan, and that the adherence of natives to the Christian faith 
must be given up. Violators of these ordinances were to be 
tortured, or otherwise put to death. The persecutions com¬ 
menced at once, with the promulgation of this Rescript, but 
were in the beginning more directed against the natives than 
the foreigners. But it was evidently the purpose of the Sho¬ 
gun to drive all the white race people from Japan. The Eng¬ 
lish traders saw this, and left in 1623. They endeavored to be 
admitted again 50 years later, but in vain; they were not 
allowed to land. The Spaniards were ordered to leave the 
country in 1624. The Portuguese traders had in 1636, been 
ordered to live exclusively on a ten-acre mud-hill, called the 
Island of Deshima, in a stockade guarded like a state prison; 
and, in 1639, they had to leave Japan entirely. The Dutch, 
who had a strong charter of privileges from the previous 
Shogun Iyeyasu,, were allowed to stay and trade in Japan, 
but had, in 1644, to move to the prison-stockade on Deshima 
Island, shut off from all direct intercourse with the Japanese 
people. 

The cruelties committed from 1614 to 1658 when the 
last Christian was tortured to death by order of the govern¬ 
ment, against the native Christians and the foreigners who, 
contrary to the Imperial edicts, had remained in Japan, 
whether they preached Christianity or not, beggar descrip¬ 
tion, being to a great extent unprintable. It is necessary, 
though, to give some idea of the mode of procedure employed 


280 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


by order of the government of the Shoguns, the Mikado 
having nothing to do with it, being then, as they had been 
since centuries, helpless puppets in the hands of the military 
class, as has been related in a previous chapter. The follow¬ 
ing quotations have, preferentially, been taken from the “His¬ 
tory of Japan from 1543 to 1658. By Murdoch and Yama- 
gata.” The latter being a Japanese, his quotations from 
Japanese history are reliable. The book sums' up the course 
of' the persecution with the written statement made, in 1636, 
by Mr. Caron who was, at the time, Superintendent of the 
Dutch Factory, to-wit: 

“At first the believers in Christ were only beheaded, 
and afterwards attached to a cross, which was consid¬ 
ered as a sufficiently heavy punishment. But when 
many of them were' seen to die with emotions of joy 
and pleasure, some even to go singing to the place of 
execution; and when, although thirty and sometimes 
one hundred were put to death at a time, it was found 
that their numbers did not appear to diminish, it was 
then determined to use every exertion to change their 
joy into grief, and their songs into tears and groans ot 
misery. 

“To effect this they were tied to stakes and burnt 
alive, were broiled on wooden gridirons, and thousands 
were thus wretchedly destroyed. But as the number of 
the Christians was not perceptibly lessened by those 
cruel punishments, the Authorities became tired of put¬ 
ting them to death, and attempts were then made to 
cause the Christians to abandon their faith by the inflic¬ 
tion of the most dreadful torments which the most dia¬ 
bolical imagination could suggest. 

“The women and girls were, stripped naked and 
compelled to crawl on all fours through the streets; 
after which they were violated in public by ruffians and, 
at last, thrown into tubs containing snakes, which had 
been trained to insinuate themselves into the human 
body. . . . One’s heart shrinks to hear of the many 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


281 


other abominable and inhuman cruelties which were 
committed, and the pen refuses to record them. 

“Once in a year a general and strict search is made 
throughout all the territories of the Empire. All the 
inhabitants are assembled in the pagodas, where they 
must sign with their blood that they are true Japanese 
and not Christians, or if they are Christians they must 
abjure the faith. All these precautions and massacres 
have, in fact, considerably reduced the Christians; and 
the Court has directed, in order to discover those that 
remain, that if any one was found to be a Christian he 
should be relieved from the punishment to which he 
would otherwise be liable, upon making discovery of a 
fellow Christian, or if he could or would not point out 
another, that then he should suffer the penalty affixed 
to the profession of his religion, namely to be hung 
with his head downward. It is generally supposed that 
this measure will be more efficacious for the extirpation 
of Christianity than all the punishments that have hith¬ 
erto been devised.” 

How this horrible torment was executed, the authors 
explain in another part of their book, thus: 

“In 1632 a new torture of the most devilish inge¬ 
nuity was devised. This was the torment of the ‘fosse’, 
or pit. A hole six feet deep and three in diameter was 
dug, and by the side of it a post with a projecting arm 
was planted. From this arm the victim was lowered 
head downwards into the pit, and there left to hang 
till he (or she) either died or recanted. Before being 
lowered, the victims were tightly corded so as to im¬ 
pede the circulation of the blood, in some cases swathed 
in a sack confining all the person except one hand, left 
free to make the sign of recantation. Soon blood began 
to ooze from the mouth, the nose, and the ears. For 
most, death came only at the end of two, three, and 
even six days. "Care was taken to bleed the victims in 
the temples of the head to prevent a too rapid congestion, 
and to prolong the pain. The first victim, a brother of 
the ‘Company of Jesus’, lived in the pit from 3 :00 p. m. 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


282 


of July 28 to 9:00 a. m., July 31, 1633—that is, for 

sixty-six hours.” 

While these tortures were employed on natives and for¬ 
eigners alike, it seems that women were treated more cruelly 
than men. In the so-called Shimabara rebellion, in 1637-38, 
during which thousands of Christian women were killed, 
unspeakable cruelties were committed, either by order of 
their Lord, as punishment because their husbands could not 
pay the land-tax, or by the Shogun’s Samurai who quelled 
the rebellion by killing the whole population of 37,000 men, 
women and children. The total number of Christian Japan¬ 
ese is estimated to have amounted to 280,000, all of which, 
with the exception of the few who recanted, were with or 
without torture put to death during the wenty-six years from 
1614 to 1635, after which year only 1000 more are reported 
to have been killed. That was the end of Christianity in 
Japan until the year 1853, when conversion to the Christian 
faith took place again among the natives, contrary to the 
Japanese Authorities’ prohibitory actions. 

The Dutch traders who were permitted to stay on De- 
shima Island were treated like criminals, and had to sub¬ 
mit to many indignities during the 212 years till Commo¬ 
dore Perry’s landing in 1853, which brought them relief. 
Great injustice has been done these men by foreign, espe¬ 
cially English, writers, who accuse the Portuguese and the 
Hollanders of having been a very low class of men, greedy, 
ignorant, and treacherous, who, by their quarrels, had brought 
upon the white race people and their religion the contempt 
and hatred of the Japanese. Messrs. Murdock and Yama- 
gata (a Britisher and a Japanese) do, in their “History of 
Japan”, more justice to the Dutch traders, and not unde¬ 
servedly so. Their main sources are the writings of Dr. 
P. F. Von Siebold (1796 to 1866) and Dr. E. Kaempfer 
(1651 to 1716). Siebold was a German physician, natural- 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 283 

ist, and traveler, who came in 1823 to Japan as the leader of 
a scientific mission. Three years later, while in Yedo, the 
Shogun’s capital, he was arrested and imprisoned for having 
bought a map of. the country. In 1830 he was banished 
from Japan, and spent nearly thirty years in writing his great 
work “Nippon”, and in the composition of works on the 
fauna, flora and bibliography of Japan. In 1859 he re¬ 
visited the “Land of the Rising Sun”, was invited to the 
Imperial Court, and acted, on behalf of the Shogun’s gov¬ 
ernment, as negotiator with the foreign powers, until 1862, 
when he returned to Europe. After his death in ’66 the 
Japanese erected a monument to the man whom, forty years 
before, they had imprisoned and banished for his scientific 
work in their country. Dr. E. Kaempfer, also a German 
physician, came as surgeon for the fleet of the Dutch East 
India Company to Japan, returned to Europe in 1693 and 
wrote his “History of Japan”, the last English edition of 
which was published in 1906. He said: 

“In the charter of privileges granted, in 1611, by 
Iyeyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate had 
stated that all Dutch ships that came into the Empire 
of Japan, whatever part or place they put into, we do 
hereby command all and every one of our subjects not 
to molest them in any way, nor to be a hindrance to 
them; but, on the contrary, to show them all manner of 
help, favor and assistance. Everyone shall beware to 
maintain friendship, in assurance of which we have 
given our Imperial word to these people.” 

Messrs. Murdoch and Yamagata add to this quotation, 
from Japanese sources, the following: 

“The Dutch found, in May, 1641, when they had 
been ordered to leave Hirado, that they were not allowed 
to enter Nagasaki, but to be penned up in Deshima, 
the Island prison house built for the reception of the 
Portuguese in 1636, and which had been unoccupied 
for the preceding three years. And for their prison 


284 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

house they were told they would have to pay a yearly 
rent of 5,000 tael, a great deal more than the free-hold 
of that mud-speck was worth. Very soon, too, they dis¬ 
covered that their social position had altered in a strik¬ 
ing fashion. In Hirado (where they had been located 
during the last thirty years), they had enjoyed a great 
measure of freedom; they had been friendly, and also 
exchanged courtesies, with the Daimyo and his highest 
officials on a footing of mutual respect. In the old 
Hirado records we constantly read of the number of 
'guns’ (salute shots) given when any guest visited or 
left the ‘Dutch House’. At the funerals of those-Hol¬ 
landers who had been laid to rest in the Hirado ceme¬ 
tery, the Japanese had been sympathizing attendants. 
Now, in Deshima, everything was changed, as shown 
by the writings of Dr. Siebold, who, when he first came 
to Japan in 1823, visited the Dutch traders on their 
prison Island, which he described as follows: 

“ ‘A guard at the gate (on the bridge between the 
Island and the mainland) prevented all communication 
with the City of Nagasaki; no Hollander without 
weighty reason and without permission of the Gover¬ 
nor might pass the gate; no Japanese, unless public 
women, might live in a Hollander’s house. As if this 
were not enough, even within Deshima itself the Hol¬ 
landers were, like state prisoners, heavily watched. No 
Japanese might speak with them in his own language 
unless in the presence of a witness (a government spy), 
or visit them in their houses. The creatures of the 
government had the warehouses under lock and key, 
and the traders ceased to be masters of their own prop¬ 
erty. They were even not allowed to bury their dead 
on Japanese ground, but had to sink them in the sea.’ ” 
Messrs. Murdock and Yamagata animadvert upon this 
treatment of the Dutch tiaders thus: 

“It must not be overlooked that the servants of the 
Dutch Company who had the patience—not to say the 
courage—to submit to all this outrageous insolence from 
Japanese beadledom, submitted to it in the interest of 
the ‘United Provinces of Holland.’ In those days of the 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


285 


seventeenth century the very existence and independence 
of these ‘Provinces’ was based upon the successful prose¬ 
cution of foreign trade by the East India Company. It 
may seem wild to assert that the Dutch traders were 
really patriots; but if we take any large view of the 
situation, we shall find that the assertion is, in a meas¬ 
ure, correct. But the small fry of all Japanese official¬ 
dom who inflicted all these needless indignities upon 
men infinitely their superiors in intellect and enterprise 
were not patriots —they were simply so many lazy rice- 
eaters, inflating themselves like the frog in the fable, 
simply because they could -safely venture to treat the 
Dutch like outcasts. 

“What would Hideyoshi or Iyeyasu have said to 
this sort of thing? Iyeyasu had actually promised in 
writing that, if the Hollanders established themselves in 
Japan, ‘no man should do them any wrong, and that he 
would defend and maintain them as his own subjects.” 

The question arises: What causes have brought about 
the sudden change in the policy of the Shogun’s government 
from friendliness to fierce hostility against the white race 
nations and Christianity? The charge that the want of man¬ 
ners, bad behavior, low character, and mutual criminations 
of the white traders, and the over-zealousness and over-confi¬ 
dence on the part of some of the Christian preachers had dis¬ 
gusted the educated class of the Japanese, the Shogun and 
the military nobles, and caused them to consider the white 
race people as too uncivilized to remain in Japan, is unten¬ 
able, as shown by the quotations from the writings of Messrs. 
Murdoch and Yamagata, and the fact that the Dutch traders 
were, during thirty years, treated as equals by the highest 
nobles of the military class. Nor is it true that the fear 
that Spain or some of the other European nations might 
come to conquer Japan, had caused the Shoguns’ persecu¬ 
tion of the Christians, and the banishment of the other 
Europeans who had so far abstained from all religious work. 


286 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


There are two valid reasons why the military class of Japan, 
which ruled the country, had no fear of any European 
invasions. 

Twice had the Mongolians in the thirteenth century 
invaded Japan, and twice been repulsed with much greater 
loss than inflicted upon the Japanese. It is true that each 
time the Mongolian ships had been driven oflf and partly 
destroyed by fierce gales; but it can not be denied that the 
skill of the Japanese in single combat with their long swords, 
and their attacks on the hostile ships with the small Jap¬ 
anese boats, had overwhelmed the invaders who, at that 
time, were the most successful warriors of the known part 
of the Earth. Under Genghis Khan the Mongolians were 
acknowledged to be as nearly invincible as any race of the 
known world had ever been. 

The invaders were race relatives of the natives of Japan; 
but after their repeated defeats they did not assault that 
country again. Since that time the Japanese have been 
convinced of their superiority in war over the people of all 
other races; and this belief was strengthened when, in the 
16th century, European Christians of several nationalities 
came to Japan, not as warriors but as petitioners to be per¬ 
mitted to trade there and preach their religion. Indeed, far 
from showing themselves as fighters, the majority of them 
came as sufferers, ready to lay down their lives for their 
religious belief. 

The military nobles whose Tartar spirit caused them to 
consider fighting as the principal manly virtue, consequently 
despised the peaceable white race traders and preachers. But 
this feeling underwent a change, when the persecution of the 
Christians commenced. Then the courtiers, the Shinto priests, 
and the military nobles were surprised to see that the Chris¬ 
tian preachers could do more than pray and preach. Although 
many of them were physically weak—emaciated from their 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


287 


nightly vigils and fasting—they met the cruel tortures and 
death without fear. Chanting their anthems, they went to the 
cross to be speared by the executioners,—to the grid-irons 
and the stake to be broiled or burned alive,—and to the 
“fosse” where, head-down, they had to hang for days, before 
death relieved them. They did not complain, nor beg for 
mercy, but prayed, under the most piercing pains, for their 
enemies. With gnashing teeth the Shinto priests and military 
nobles saw that in those pain-racked bodies there lived souls 
which had been rendered invincible by the Christian religion. 

But they also witnessed the execution of the native Chris¬ 
tians, and noticed with pride that their bodies were less sus¬ 
ceptible to pain than those of the white race Christians. The 
cruel treatment the low class Japanese had, since many cen¬ 
turies, received from their Lords had inured them to physical 
suffering. This was even noticed by the Dutch, who did not 
fail, though, to acknowledge that the Christian religion had 
inspired the converted natives to endure torture and death 
rather than abjure their faith. 

Mr. Caron, the before-mentioned Superintendent of the 
Dutch Factory, wrote, in 1636, regarding the fortitude ot 
the native Christians: 

“The Japanese Christians, however, endured these 
persecutions with a great degree of steadiness and cour¬ 
age. Very few, in comparison with those who remained 
steadfast in the faith, were the number of those who 
fainted under their trials, and abjured their religion. It 
is true that these people possess on such occasions, a 
stoicism and intrepidity of which no examples are to 
be met with in the bulk of the other nations. Neither 
men or women are afraid of death. Yet an uncommon 
steadfastness in the faith must, at the same time, be 
required to continue in these trying circumstances.” 


288 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

11. JAPANESE NOBILITY HATED CHRISTIANS OF 
EUROPE 

It is therfore not surprising that, especially the Samurai 
who were, since childhood, trained to endure severe bodily 
pain, and looked upon the painful “Harakiri” as an honor¬ 
able, not painful, act—while ignoring the fortitude of the 
Christian priests, believed themselves to be of the most supe¬ 
rior race on Earth, and to have no cause to fear an hostile 
invasion from white race enemies. In this belief they were 
confirmed by the information which one of the spies, sent by 
the Shoguns to Europe in the beginning of the 17th century, 
had brought back. The first one sent by lyeyasu did not 
seem to have satisfied the Shogun’s officials. 

But, in 1611, another Japanese, by the name of Asahi, be¬ 
came a Christian, and then went as a spy to Europe. He 
studied Christianity, was in Rome ordained as a Jesuit 
catechist and became the favorite of a leading Cardinal 
who recommended him to the Spanish Court at Madrid. 
There he was present at the deliberations of the statesmen 
and priests about the question of making war upon Japan 
and conquering the country. Having become a Christian, he 
was not suspected of being a spy. Undoubtedly, Asahi had 
obtained a thorough knowledge of the Church, its relations 
to the European nations, its wars with the Protestants, and 
also of the military strength of the several Christian govern¬ 
ments, none of which was in a condition to invade Japan. 
All this information was duly submitted by him, after his 
return, to the Shogun, Hidetada, and his ministers. 

But they learned not only all about the political doings 
of the Churches, but also the doctrines they taught, the 
Ten Commandments of the Old Testament, the great Com¬ 
mandment of the New Testament, “to love thy neighbor as 
thyself”, which were embodied in the laws of every Chris¬ 
tian nation and formed the basis of their governments. This 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


289 


information forced upon the ruling nobles the question, what 
effect the general spread of Christianity in Japan would have 
on their government, in which, by the light of the Christian 
doctrine, the lawful Ruler was, in fact, a physical and mental 
wreck, trained to be so ignorant as to believe in the ancient 
superstition of the divinity of his ancestors and of his own;— 
the Shogun an usurper of the Imperial prerogatives—the 
Daimyo lawless land-grabbers calling themselves Territorial 
Princes;—the Samuai half-savage soldiers hired to conduct 
the wars of their robber-Lords;—and the great masses of the 
people, the farmers, traders, and artisans who were the sup¬ 
porters of the nation, little better than slaves of the ruling 
nobility. 

That such a government, which was based upon an 
ancient Cult which scheming priests had, since more than 
2000 years, foisted, in their own interest and that of the 
robber-noblemen, upon the people, would not be tolerated to 
exist in Christian Japan, was readily perceived by the Sho¬ 
gun and the whole military class, and determined the Ruling 
Powers to exterminate the Christians, native and foreign, in 
Japan. And lest a seed of their religion be sown again in the 
heart of any Japanese, it was also concluded to banish the 
“white race barbarians” from Japanese soil, excepting the 
few Dutch traders who were useful to the country in bring¬ 
ing its product upon the European markets. 

The military class has, ever since, considered the white 
peoples to be their worst enemies, and despised and hated 
them, because, “instead of coming boldly as warriors to in¬ 
vade and conquer Japan, as the Mongolians had endeavored 
to do, the whites had appeared, as peaceful traders and 
preachers of the gospel of love with the secret intention of 
getting through this religion, control of the supreme power, 
and revolutionizing the existing government to the detriment 
of the entire military nobility.” This hatred was increased, 


290 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

in a superlative degree, 250 years later, when these despised 
“white barbarians” who had, in the meantime, made great 
progress in their civilization, and invented a modern mode of 
warfare on land and sea not known in East Asia, came to 
Japan which had not advanced, either in the arts of peace 
or war, and taking advantage of her unpreparedness and 
weakness, forced treaties of trade and amity upon the Jap¬ 
anese people against their will. It has been shown in pre¬ 
vious chapters how, by murder and other deeds of violence, 
the military men gave vent to their hatred of the foreign¬ 
ers and their religion, until after the adoption of the govern¬ 
ment’s secret anti-foreign and war policy, in 1869, the sud¬ 
den “great change” of the sentiment of the Samurai and 
their government from fierce hatred to feigned friendliness 
to the white foreigners took place. 

12. HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF 

To fully understand the hostility of the Japanese ruling 
classes against the Americans, it is only necessary do 
imagine how the latter would feel, if their government should, 
on account of its unpreparedness for war, and to avoid it, 
grant immigration regulations in favor of Japan, which the 
American people consider as humiliating, because made at 
the demand of a nation upon which they have been accus¬ 
tomed to look down as being in civilization, national strength, 
and the standing in the world entirely below the people of 
the United States. The consequence would be, that the 
Americans, after due preparation, would abolish the humiliat¬ 
ing regulations, and if necessary go to war about it. Japan’s 
nobility is equally certain that their civilization was, in the 
17th century, superior to that of the “white barbarians” and 
is so now; and that, in 1853, the foreign nations took an 
unfair advantage of Japan’s unpreparedness for war to com- 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


291 


pel her to grant them trade and immigration regulations 
which were felt by the Japanese as a deep humiliation which, 
according to their code of national honor, must be washed 
off with the blood of the. foreign “barbarians”. And of the 
nations who thus offended the Japanese people in 1853 and 
the succeeding years, the Americans were the leading one, 
whose example was followed by the Europeans. That is the 
reason why the Japanese ruling classes concentrate their 
hatred upon the United States, and look for an opportunity 
to get their revenge from it. 


13. LOW CLASS PEOPLE ORIGINALLY FRIENDLY TO 
AMERICANS 

But the common people of Japan harbored no hatred 
against the white race people and their religion in the 17th 
century, nor against the Americans in the nineteenth. On 
the contrary, they were friendly to the latter, because, from 
the description they had read or heard about the United 
States, especially of the Pacific Coast States, there were 
many of the farming and laboring class who wished to emi¬ 
grate to that country and live among the Americans; for 
Japan has no room for all of them, and less so every day. 
A lecturer before the Royal British Geographical Society 
explained this lately in London, thus: 

“Not more than 14 33/100 per cent, of the entire 
country is agricultural land. This land is not very fer¬ 
tile, and its small productivity is yet limited by the want 
of cattle, whose manure would be needed. The raising 
of rice, the principal food product, is confined to the 
neighborhood of rivers and streams. No agricultural 
land exists at an elevation of more than 2100 feet, and 
nothing but a few trials have so far been made by rich 
landowners to prepare desert land or such that is far 
from water, for agricultural purposes.” 


292 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


The want of good land drives many people to locate in 
dangerous places, on the sides of volcanoes, near the banks 
of mountain streams, and on the sea shore, all places where 
they are exposed to the many terrible forces of a wild nature, 
which kill every year thousands of the unprotected settlers. 
They have heard so much about the beautiful climate of the 
American Pacific Coast that they emigrated to that land which 
promised them labor, good wages, and life in safety in, every 
year, increasing numbers; while those who had to stay home 
propitiated the Gods by prayers and sacrifices to assist them 
in their endeavor to follow their friends to the land of plenty. 


14. AMERICAN IMMIGRATION LAWS INJURE 
JAPANESE LABORERS 

It can well be imagined how grievously this class of 
people were not only disappointed, but mortified, when the 
United States immigration laws were so changed as to 
exclude them. For they believed they had a right to go 
there. Since the modern public schools have been in opera¬ 
tion in Japan, the children have been taught that their 
Emperor, in 1854, “permitted” the Americans to come to this 
country. The “Imperial Rescript to the Soldiers” teaches 
the same falsehood. And in their historical lessons the Jap¬ 
anese learn that, until a few hundred years ago, the whole 
North American Continent was inhabited only by the Indians, 
near race relatives of the Japanese, but conquered by the 
white race people of Europe, not because they were braver 
men and greater warriors, but because they had better arms 
than the natives. It is also commented on in Japan that hun¬ 
dreds of thousands of square miles of this vast territory are 
still uninhabited, although the Americans and Canadians are 
importing, since nearly two centuries, millions of Europeans, 
many of whom have in the late Balkan wars proven through 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


293 


their barbarous treatment of wounded enemies and noncom¬ 
batant men, women, and children, that they are far less civi¬ 
lized than the Japanese who, in their wars against Russia 
and China, have rivaled, in the humane treatment of their 
enemies, the most advanced nations of the world. They sum 
up their argument as follows: 

“And yet these same South Europeans who in Japan 
are classified with the uncivilized nations, are preferred to 
the Japanese by the United States government on ac¬ 
count of their white color which designates them as 
members of the Caucasion race. The Americans ignore 
the, by white race savants acknowledged, fact that the 
Japanese are closely related to the most primitive Cau¬ 
casians, because they are descendants of a white race 
Ainu element which, after the conquest of Japan by the 
Mongolian Tartars, became mixed with the latter. 
Samurai writers also point out “that the Hungarians are 
a mixed race, having considerable Mongolian blood in 
their veins, and the Spanish, Portuguese, and Italians 
of some parts of Sicily, have the blood of the Moors 
in them.” 


15. JAPANESE WANT WAR AND REVENGE 

These are the arguments by which the Japanese, ignor¬ 
ing the great difference of their civilization from that of the 
white race nations of America and Europe, endeavor to prove 
that their working classes should not be excluded from the 
United States whose contrary course of action they, there¬ 
fore, denounce as ungrateful, unjust, and a gross insult to 
the whole Japanese race, which, unless the obnoxious immi¬ 
gration laws, and the alien land laws of California be promptly 
repealed, must be washed off with blood in a war of con¬ 
quest that will bring the Japanese such American territory 
as they need for their farmers and laborers. The size of the 
United States is not taken in consideration, as neither was 


294 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


that of Russia. The latter country was vanquished although 
it had 600,000 soldiers in the field, while the United States 
has less than 300,000 regularly drilled soldiers against whom 
Japan, which was wise enough to prepare herself in times of 
peace, can marshal four millions of well trained soldiers who 
burn with patriotism and revenge to rush into the coming 
fray. 

Although the Americans, personally and as a nation, can 
not be classified as a non-vindictive people, it will, neverthe¬ 
less, seem incredible to them, that revenge should drive the 
Japanese into a great war. The government of the latter 
has, of course, planned this war for the purpose of bene¬ 
fiting its people and increasing their Empire, but the feeling of 
revenge of all classes of the population will be a potent fac¬ 
tor in bringing it about and rendering it successful. Revenge 
is one of the most vicious passions of the Japanese, and how 
easily it is provoked has been well described in his book, 
“Japan,” by Capt. Brinkley who, through his constant deal¬ 
ings with them during nearly 50 years, is thoroughly familiar 
with the subject. He writes: 

“That the vendetta was largely practiced in the 
Military Epoch is doubtless attributable mainly to the 
fact that there did not exist any competent or trust¬ 
worthy tribunals, acting in the interests of society and 
ready to undertake the office of punishment, instead of 
leaving it to the wronged person. The passion of re¬ 
venge has always in Japan possessed implacable ten¬ 
acity of deadly purpose. Men devoted long years to pur¬ 
suing the slayer of a father or some less intimate rela¬ 
tive, abandoned fortune and position in order to carry 
out the quest, and did not allow extreme hardships to 
divert them from their aim. But if these displays of 
resolution and endurance elicit applause, there is gener¬ 
ally to be found in the circumstances that gave rise 
to the vendetta some revolting exhibition of treachery, 
vindictiveness, or ferocity. A man defeated in a fen- 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


295 


cing match to which he has himself challenged his oppo¬ 
nent, subsequently waylays the latter and shoots him from 
behind, or hires assassins to destroy him, or contrives 
his disgrace by preferring false charges officially against 
him. A Samurai, with the aid of his paramour, in¬ 
veigles a rival to a drinking-bout, and slays him as he 
lies unconscious under the influence of wine. A soldier 
who sees another promoted over his head, devises an 
elaborate scheme to convict him of conspiracy which he 
has never contemplated. Such acts, forming the pre¬ 
lude to vengeance achieved despite great difficulties and 
lengthy delays, are almost sufficiently numerous to lower 
the general standard of the Bushi’s morality.” 

If the Bushi (Samurai) resorted to such schemes of vio¬ 
lence to satisfy their revenge on insignificant occasions, how 
much more will they do so when the well being of their 
people, their national necessities, and the standing of their 
race before the world are, as they believe, severely and insult¬ 
ingly injurd? 


16. JAPAN’S FUTURE AMERICAN PROVINCE 

The ruling Oligarchs have used to perfection the national 
passions to bring about the present crisis between Japan and 
the United States, which gives them an opportunity to carry 
out their war policy of 1869, without having to disclose its 
pre-existence during all those years. The United States may 
possibly try to avert the conflict, and gain time by abolish¬ 
ing the alien land law of California. But if it does, the con¬ 
cession will only encourage the Japanese Rulers to make 
other demands until the point is reached where they can raise 
the battle cry which will find an enthusiastic response in the 
hearts of the highest noblemen, as well as of the lowest labor¬ 
ers of Japan. They all, especially the latter, would like noth¬ 
ing better than to invade California, and march as the vic¬ 
torious conquerors into the cities where they were not 


296 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government ' 


deemed worthy to live as humble workingmen. But they will 
go just as enthusiastically to a certain American territory 
which they can conquer without firing a shot, where there 
will be homes and well-paying labor for millions of them. 
The winters are long and cold in that country, but not too 
severe to the hardy Japanese who will make the very welkin 
ring with their “Banzai”, when they take possession of the 
greatest and richest Territory the United States ever had, the 
priceless jewel which is thereafter to be known as “Japan’s 
American province, Alaska.” 


CHAPTER V. 


THE JAPANESE INVASION; AND THE RACE 
IDEALS OF THE RULING CLASS 

1. THE INVASION CAN BE PREVENTED 

It is humiliating to every American to know that his 
country is in danger of being, unprepared as it is for war, 
assaulted by an Asiatic people of an inferior civilization, and 
whose country is only as large as an insignificant part of the 
United States. This humiliating feeling is somewhat miti¬ 
gated by the consciousness that the generous assistance of 
the American people bestowed upon a half-civilized race in 
its seeming struggle to elevate itself, has been the main 
cause of their present disagreable situation. But there also 
has been contributory negligence on the part of former 
administrations in Washington, D. C. They have left the 
Pacific Coast States more or less unprotected because, until 
a few years ago, there was no nation whose country bordered 
on the Pacific Ocean which was able to make war upon the 
mighty American Republic. But since Japan has become a 
world power on land and sea, it seems never to have occurred 
to the Washington Authorities that Alaska, the richest terri¬ 
tory of the American Continent, is separated from the rest 
of the United States by 620 to 2200 miles of a turbulent 
sea, and that in this isolated condition and its utter defense¬ 
lessness, it could not fail to become apparent to its land- 
hungry neighbor on the Asiatic Continent that Alaska, in 
case of war between the United States and Japan, would fall 
easily a prey to the latter. 

But if it was an error of the past to give Alaska no mili¬ 
tary protection, the failure to do so now, when the relations 


298 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


between the United States and Japan may, at any moment, 
become seriously strained, would be a blunder that might 
cause the irredeemable loss of that great Territory to the 
Americans. It must, therefoe, be asked, whether it is too late 
now to protect Alaska against an invasion; and the question 
can be answered in the negative. Of course, there is no time 
to fortify the enormous Coast line of the Territory and pro¬ 
vide military defenses for it. But as the Asiatic assailants 
must come by water, they can be met on the water and 
driven back to their homes. And since the Pacific squadron 
of the American navy is no match for the Japanese war 
fleet, the Atlantic squadron must be brought to the Pacific 
Coast to join the Pacific fleet in order to decidedly defeat 
the Japanese. The Americans should therefore be so strong 
as to leave no doubt about the outcome. For the Japanese 
admirals will sacrifice their last ship and their last man to 
destroy the whole American navy, because if they succeed 
in doing so, Japan will control the North Pacific Ocean 
through her auxiliary warships which have been built as mer¬ 
chant vessels under the subsidy law, but so constructed that, 
with very little labor and in a short time, they can be 
equipped and manned as men-of-war, and take the place of 
their destroyed war-fleets, while the United States, after los¬ 
ing its fleet, will have nothing to take its place, leaving the 
Pacific Coast of North America at the mercy of the Japanese. 

The Authorities in Washington, D. C., have no informa¬ 
tion upon the subject of Japan’s auxiliary war-ships, their 
number and size, the strength of their batteries when armed, 
their speed, and the time needed to convert them from trad¬ 
ing into war ships. But it is known that Japan has a mer¬ 
cantile fleet of steamers of a million tons. One company 
alone, the Nippon Yusen Kaisha, owns more than 100 of 
these steamers, with a total displacement of 400,000 tons, 
most of which are of iron or steel, and built to serve in case 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


299 


of war as cruisers. The existence of this auxiliary fleet gives 
Japan a great advantage which can only be overcome by mak¬ 
ing the American fleet so strong that it cannot fail to van¬ 
quish the Japanese who expect, however, that the Americans, 
proud of their notorious superiority on sea, ever since Paul 
Jones hoisted the first American flag over a man-of-war, 
will, rather than buy foreign war-ships to strengthen their 
fleets, go into the fight with less and weaker ships than the 
Japanese, and meet with destruction. 

As the reason why the Pacific squadron of the United 
States has not long since been strengthened, the want of 
facilities to harbor and care for the ships has been given 
officially in Washington by President Taft, in 1912, as 
follows: 

“It is absurd to suppose that the Navy Department 
regards the Atlantic as more of an 'home’ coast than 
the Pacific. The fleet is in the Atlantic because it can 
be operated and repaired at less cost than if it were on 
the Pacific Coast. The extra expense for fuel on the 
Pacific may be overcome by the use of our Alaska 
coal lands, or by the substitution of crude oil for coal. 

“That we must have equal facilities on the Pacific 
Coast in order that the navy may be maintained effi¬ 
ciently, the navy yards on the Pacific Coast must be 
brought to the point where they can care for the needs 
of our entire fleets. The docks at Mare .Island, in Cali¬ 
fornia, and at Bremerton, in Washington, while they 
are satisfactory as far as they go, are not adequate to 
the needs of our entire fleet.” 

Every word of that statement regarding the Pacific navy 
yards was true. When Mr. Taft got into the Presidency, the 
two American navy yards had no dock large enough for the 
largest battleship, while one of the three private ship yards 
of Japan had, even at that time, a dock of such dimensions 
as to accommodate the super-dreadnaughts. Under Presi¬ 
dent Taft’s regime Bremerton obtained a similar dry dock, 


300 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


and an additional one was planned. But the American navy 
yards of the Pacific Coast are still far from being adequate 
to harbor and otherwise accommodate the Atlantic fleet; 
and the needed enlargement of the Pacific squadron would, 
therefore, be impractical if not impossible, if it were not 
for a natural man-of-war harbor possessed by the United 
States in the State of Washington on Sucia Island. 

This harbor is land-locked from three sides, and located 
so that the ships lying in it are protected against wind and 
weather at any season. It has three different basins, two 
deep enough for the biggest war-ship, and the whole of 
them able to harbor the entire Atlantic and Pacific fleets. 
One of these basins can, with no more than the cost of one 
large dry-dock, be converted into an immense dock that will 
hold, at one time, two of the biggest super-dreadnaughts. The 
harbor has, furthermore, the extraordinary advantage that 
the best coal presently mined anywhere on the Pacific Coast 
between Alaska and Cape Horn in South America, are to be 
had in millions of tons on the land which surrounds the har¬ 
bor. And to complete the usefulness of this wonderful com¬ 
bination of land and water, it is located at the point of the 
Pacific Coast States which is closest to Alaska; from where 
the latter can be reached by the so-called “Inner Passage”, 
avoiding the dangerous West coast of Vancouver Island. At 
the same time' ships in this harbor are only one hundred 
miles from the next navy yard at Bremerton, and no more 
than seventy-five miles from the Pacific Ocean. 

These various advantages would allow all the fighting 
ships of the American navy to lie in that harbor in safety 
against any weather, get their coal there from the bunkers 
of the mines at a minimum cost, obtain the necessary repairs 
at the Bremerton Navy Yard, and be able at any time to 
head off an invasion of any part of the Coast States and 
of Alaska which they could reach quicker than a Japanese 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


301 


fleet would. In this manner Japan’s plans for the sudden 
seizure of American territory could be foiled, and the gov¬ 
ernment of that country compelled to change its bellicose plans 
against the United States. 

The only difficulty that, probably, will disable the United 
States to make use of this harbor, is the fact that the land 
surrounding it has no private owner. If it had, he would 
certainly, long ago, have offered it for sale to the govern¬ 
ment (as Mr. Bremer did with the site of Bremerton), and 
by pointing out its advantages in the public press have gained 
the support of Congressmen, and finally got the government 
to buy the land and make it the best man-of-war harbor in 
the whole country. Unfortunately, this cannot be done, be¬ 
cause the government itself owns the land as a lighthouse 
and military reserve; and although three times, in 1898, 1909 
and in December of 1913, the attention of the Washington 
Authorities has, by letters, maps and descriptions, been called 
to the extraordinary usefulness of the harvor, especially in 
view of a probable war with Japan, there is no sign that 
the United States will obtain any benefit from the possession 
of that property. 

Perhaps the Washington Authorities intend to send rein¬ 
forcements to the Pacific fleet by way of the Panama Canal, 
which, according to the statement of Col. Goethals, made in 
February, 1914, will be opened for large ships in 1915, and 
no sooner. But Japan may go to war with the United States 
in 1915. Ten is a significant figure in the “ancestor wor¬ 
ship”; and although the members of the ruling class do not 
believe in the Shinto doctrines, they are, like the common 
Japanese, not free from the belief in good and bad omens. 
The Chinese war was fought in 1894 and ’95; ten years later, 
in 1904-05, the Russian war, and ten years after that, in 
1915, the war against the United States is likely to follow, 
unless the European war offers the scheming Oligarchs an 


302 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


opportunity to make, without hostilities, the American 
Pacific States and Alaska Japanese colonies, by means of a 
change of the American laws, which would admit every 
Japanese subject to the country and to citizenship. 


2. HOW JAPAN’S RULERS DESIRE TO UTILIZE THE 
EUROPEAN WAR 

That such an extraordinary change can be brought about 
on the European battlefields is not only possible, but highly 
probable, because it would be just such a scheme as the Samu¬ 
rai enacted, in 1869, by learning the “foreign drill and tac¬ 
tics’’, in order to enable them, afterwards, to wage war 
against their foreign teachers. This new plot commenced 
with Japan’s demand that Germany surrender Kiaochau, the 
German leasehold in China, to her. 

The desire for revenge of the Samurai Rulers could not 
allow the opportunity to pass to humiliate Germany for her 
share in the humiliation of the Japanese government by join¬ 
ing Russia and France in compelling Japan, in 1895, to return 
to China the just conquered Liao-Tung Peninsula, so that 
Russia could, later on, get possession of it. The claim that 
the Japanese Authorities were obliged, through their treaty 
with England, to conquer Kiaochau, was not well founded. 
The treaty does not demand Japan’s participation in the war, 
but only obliges her to guard the British interests on the 
East Asiatic Coast, which were, in no manner, threatened by 
Kiaochau. But the language used in the Japanese note to 
the German government betrays the revengeful spirit which 
had dictated it; for every word was copied from the “advis¬ 
ory” note sent, 20 years ago, by the three great powers 
named, to the then insignificant Japan. 

The insult contained in that note was made to sting 
Germany so much more, because Japan’s highest military 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


303 


officers had expressed, after the Russian war, to the German 
officers who had acted for years as Japan’s military instruct¬ 
ors, frankly, their opinion that to Germany belonged the 
credit for the Japanese victories over Russia’s more numer¬ 
ous troops. Besides that, Japanese officers and hundreds of 
students had, up to the commencement of the present war, 
enjoyed the hospitality of the German military, and other 
institutes of learning. The insult and ingratitude shown to 
Germany by the Japanese Rulers in return for the many and 
valuable favors they had received, was, according to the 
ethics of the Western civilization, an inexcusable outrage 
which prompted the German government not to answer 
Japan’s “advisory” note, but to give her ambassador in Ber¬ 
lin, without comment, his passports. 

Justified as that action was, it was, nevertheless, in 
dealing with Japanese Samurai whose gloss of Western 
civilization covers their Tartaric savagery but very thinly, 
most imprudent. The consequence was that Kiaochau was, 
without delay, besieged; also the German islands in the 
Pacific and Indian Oceans taken possession of by Japanese 
troops; the German settlers, officials, and missionaries driven 
from their homes, some of them interned and compelled to 
do, as prisoners of war, manual labor on tropical islands; 
and the civilizatory work Germany had caused to be done 
since years destroyed, to make room for the introduction, 
among the natives, of the Shinto Cult by imported Japanese 
laborers and farmers. And, to cap the climax, the Japanese 
Ambassadors in Russia, France and England were authorized 
by their government to ofifer to Germany’s enemies the assist¬ 
ance of Japan’s troops on the European battlefields. 

That offer, however, betrayed more than Samurai ven¬ 
geance. It would be a thorough misunderstanding of their 
character to think that these selfish, foreign-hating schemers 
would, to satisfy their revenge against one white race nation, 


304 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


sacrifice probably hundreds of thousands of men of their 
own race for the benefit of other white race peoples without 
a suitable reward. That this reward will not consist in the 
transfer of territorial possessions is to be foreseen, because 
Japan’s greedy land-hunger makes her an undesirable neigh¬ 
bor. There is one reward, though, which Japan’s Rulers 
would gladly accept, and, no doubt, had in view when they 
offered to send their troops to Europe. 

Since years they have endeavored to convince the Wash¬ 
ington Authorities that the preference given in the American 
immigration and naturalization laws to the white race, includ¬ 
ing the Slavic people of Southern Europe, is an injustice to 
the Japanese subjects who are now considered as less civilized 
than the Caucasians. Thus far they have not been success¬ 
ful in changing these laws in their favor. But if the Japan¬ 
ese, after having been the accepted equals and comrades of 
Europeans who claim and are reputed to be the most 
civilized people of the white race, renew their demand for 
the right of unlimited immigration and acquiring citizenship, 
and are backed by the powerful influence of England, France 
and Russia, there can be no doubt that, under the present 
timid national Administration, their demands will be granted. 
That is the distinction which the Japanese Rulers have longed 
for since 1873, and to obtain it now they will not hesitate 
to sacrifice hecatombs of their fellow men on the European 
battlefields; for the advantages they are expecting to gain 
thereby will swell their pride and conjure up pictures of a 
great future before them. 

With the right of unlimited immigration and naturaliza¬ 
tion they would have 10 millions of Japanese in the Pacific 
Coast States and Alaska within 10 years, and Japanese gover¬ 
nors, legislators, congressmen and other officials would rule 
therein. There would be miscegenation, and the yellow 
race prevail, together with the Shinto Cult, and there would 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


305 


be millions of men trained to the Japanese drill and tactics, 
ready, when the time comes, to secede from the United 
States and make the Pacific Coast States and Alaska Japanese 
colonies. That is the reward for which the Samurai Oli¬ 
garchs will gladly send the ignorant followers of the “divine 
Mikado” to the European battlefields! 


JAPAN MUST CONQUER NEW TERRITORY OR FACE 
NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY OR REVOLUTION 

The financial condition of the Japanese people renders 
the acquisition of new territory necessary. The low condi¬ 
tion of the great masses of the farmers and working classes 
cannot be bettered much, even by a change of the American 
immigration laws, unless hundreds of thousands of Japanese 
zvere to be admitted to the United States every year. The 
cultivation of the vacant lands of Korea and of the Liao- 
Tung Peninsula requires money which the poor people can 
not get, nor their government either. 

But the whole nation has seen their men-of-war built, 
their army of four millions of soldiers equipped, their artil¬ 
lery increased and provided with the latest improved guns, 
and ammunition of every kind manufactured or bought, and 
stored in the warehouses ready for use. Hundreds of mil¬ 
lions of dollars have thus been invested by the government 
in order to prepare the country for the coming war. The 
American people may believe that the Japanese government 
has no intention to use these ships, soldiers and guns, except 
their country be invaded. But the millions of offspring of 
the Samurai class are too intelligent and proud to believe 
that any nation could invade Japan without meeting the fate 
of the Mongolian invaders in the 13th century; and they 
guide the common people. Thus the meaning of the colossal 
war preparations is well understood throughout the coun- 


306 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

try, and the hope of the conquest of the American Territory 
and of rich spoils of war makes even the lowest carry their 
burdens of poverty patriotically. But if now, after years of 
waiting, suffering, and hoping, the Ruling Powers should 
abandon their war policies, a storm of indignation and rage 
would sweep them out of their offices and fill the Privy 
Council with men of courage and daring. 

To foreigners living or traveling in Japan this secret 
war-spirit of the people is not shown, because the secretive¬ 
ness of the Japanese, especially in matters of national im¬ 
portance, prevents any betrayal; and besides that, they are 
not impatient, but accustomed silently to wait for years for 
the execution of political plans, a Japanese characteristic 
which is but little known to white race people, although 
acknowledged freely by Japanese authors. But it is not 
difficult to understand the plans for Japan’s future, never¬ 
theless. Neither in Asia on the Continent, nor on the Jap¬ 
anese Islands can the government accomplish the deeds that 
are to render their country great. The conquest of Alaska 
alone opens to the Ruling Samurai a field where, by wars 
and stratagems, they may make great political achievements. 
And only the question remains to be answered: “Is it prob¬ 
able that the economic condition of the Japanese people can 
be forthwith improved by that conquest?” To answer that 
question a few abstracts from the “Congressional Record” 
of February, 1914, may be quoted, when in the discussion of 
the “Alaska Railroad Bill” the following official reports 
about the great possibilities of Alaska as an agricultural 
country were read to the surprised Congressmen from the 
East and South where Alaska is still thought to be an im¬ 
mense field of arctic snow and ice, on which none but Eski¬ 
mos can live in summer and winter: 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


307 


3. OFFICIAL AMERICAN INFORMATION ABOUT 
ALASKA 

“Professor Georgeson, who is in charge of the Agri¬ 
cultural Experiment Stations in Alaska—one at Sitka, 
one at Fairbanks, one at Rampart, and one at Kodiak— 
has carried on experiments since 1908. He was con¬ 
nected with the Agricultural College at Kansas until he 
was assigned to this work in Alaska. He has lived in 
Northern Europe, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Fin¬ 
land, and states that the climatic conditions there are, 
under the influence of the Gulf Stream, the same as in 
Alaska which is washed by the Japanese Current. In 
a contribution to the National Geographical Magazine, 
which is published in Washington, D. C., and makes a 
specialty of scientific subjects, Professor Georgeson 
states: ‘That Alaska has agricultural possibilities of a 
sufficiently high order to make it self-supporting is no 
longer open to dispute. The range of products which 
can be raised there is, of course, confined to the hardy 
grains and vegetables of the kind grown in similar lati¬ 
tudes in Northern Europe. The stations are six in num¬ 
ber, the most Northern of which, at Rampart, is located 
in the Yukon Valley, in latitude 65° 30' North. At all 
of them we have raised successfully every year the fol¬ 
lowing hardy vegetables which are usually grown in 
Northern climates, viz: Brussel sprouts, kale, broccoli, 
beets, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, endive, horse¬ 
radish, kohlrabi, lettuce, mustard, onions, parsley, pars¬ 
nips, potatoes, radishes, rhubarb, spinach, rutabaga, tur¬ 
nips, and also some of the condiments, mint, sage, dill, 
etc. All of these can be grown and are grown as far 
up as the Arctic Circle, and beyond. Judge F. E. How¬ 
ard, of Coldfoot, Alaska, sixty miles North of the Arctic 
Circle, has grown potatoes, cabbage, cauliflower, rhu¬ 
barb, and even cucumbers, with success, out of doors, 
in that latitude.’ 

“Turning from vegetables to grains and forage 
plants, we can point to the fact that at Rampart we 
have never failed to mature barley and oats in the most 
unfavorable seasons, and in normal years we have also 


308 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


matured winter-wheat and winter-rye, spring-wheat, 
spring-rye, and buckwheat. If these results can be 
obtained in Rampart, where the slope is to the North 
instead of the South, and in latitude 65° 30' North, 
they can be obtained at hundreds of other places South 
of that latitude. So much for the cultivated crops which 
we know can be grown. In addition to that, forage 
crops for live stock of many species can be successfully 
grown. Timothy springs up as a volunteer crop along 
every trail where hay is carried. We have also grown, 
at the experiment stations, meadow oat grass, meadow 
fescue, velvet grass, smooth brome grass, Kentucky blue 
grass, and several legumes. We can grow field peas, 
vetches, white clover, and alsike clover. These forage 
plants are not now natives of the country, but they can 
be made to thrive and furnish feed for live stock on 
many a mountain side which now produces only plants 
worthless for feed. But there are also large numbers 
of nutritious grasses native to the country, which in 
many places cover large areas zvith lush grozvth, on 
which live stock do well. We depend, at present, on 
native grasses for feed for the cattle and horses at the 
various stations.” 

So much about what grows and can be raised in Alaska, 
not in one or a few places, but throughout the hundreds of 
thousands of square miles below and even partly above the 
Arctic Circle. Regarding the climate the following interest¬ 
ing colloquy between Congressman Falconer who spoke in 
favor of the Alaska railroad bill, and the members from 
Florida and Wyoming, is quoted: 

Congressman J. A. Falconer: “The following table 
will make interesting comparisons. The lowest tem¬ 
perature of which the United States Weather Bureau 
has any official records in the following places are, 
belozv zero : 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


309 


Degrees 
Below Zero 


Point Barrow, Alaska (on Arctic Ocean). 53 

Fort Yukon, Alaska (North of Arctic Circle).... 70 

Fairbanks, Alaska . 65 

Miles City, Montana . 65 

Fort Benton, Montana . 59 

Pembina, Minnesota . 59 

Willow City, North Dakota . 54 

Forman, North Dakota . 53 

Moorehead, Minnesota . 48 

Gering, Nebraska . 45 

Ogdensburg, New York. 43 

Frankfort, Kansas . 35 

Roswell, New Mexico. 29 

Liberty, Missouri . 29 

Beaver, Oklahoma . 25 

Kodiak, Alaska .. 12 

Seward, Alaska .. 12 

Valdez, Alaska . 7 

Sitka, Alaska . 4 

Juneau, Alaska. 2 

Tallahassee, Florida . 2 

Cordova, Alaska...Above Zero 1 


“Skagway (Alaska), St. Petersburg (capital of 
Russia), Seward (Alaska), Cordova (Alaska), Helsing¬ 
fors (Finland), Stockholm (capital of Sweden), Chris¬ 
tiania (capital of Norway), and Bergen (Norway), have 
practically the same latitude. The harbor of Christiania 
is a frozen harbor from thirty to sixty days a year, 
necessitating the use of an ice-breaking boat, whereas 
Cordova, Katalla, Seward, Portage Bay, and Haines 
Mission (all Alaska ports) are never ice-bound. These 
conditions of climate and temperature are due to the 
Japan Current. I call attention of the gentleman from 
Florida to the above table.” 

Congressman Calloway (Florida) : “Is it your con¬ 
tention that you will grow oranges and grapefruit there?” 

Congressman Falconer: “No, sir, but I wanted to 























310 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


get into the convolutions of the gentleman’s brain the 
fact that Alaska is not an iceberg.” 

Congressman Calloway: “I understood you to say 
that the thermometer goes lower in Florida than it does 
in Alaska.” 

Congressman Falconer: “The record of the Weather 
Bureau shows that there is no record of Cordova show¬ 
ing any weather below zero; and the record in Talla¬ 
hassee, Florida, shows that it has been two or three 
degrees below zero. 

“And, Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Wyoming 
(Mr. Mondell) exercised himself greatly because there 
is frost and ice in Alaska. Why, I will say, for the 
benefit of the gentleman, that Chart No. 5 of the 
Weather Bureau report for 1912, has written in large 
type across the Western half of Wyoming the words: 
‘Liable to killing frost any day in the year.’ Yet this 
gentleman from that jack-rabbit-inhabited, cayuse-ridden 
country, shudders at the thought of Alaska.” 

The Congressional Record contains other information 
about the resources of Alaska, besides her agricultural pos¬ 
sibilities. Congressman Falconer said: 

“One of the great resources of the Territory that 
is now engaging the attention of the people is coal, which 
is an important factor in the commerce of the country. 
Alaska has the only anthracite coal on the Pacific Coast, 
and the only high grade coking coal. The data gathered 
in the Interior Department would indicate that Alaska 
has the largest coal-fields in America. They exceed in 
area 12,000 square miles, and there is a probable area of 
several times that amount, as suggested by Dr. Brooks 
before the Senate Committee. According to Forest Bul¬ 
letin No. 81, Alaska has merchantable timberlands ex¬ 
ceeding 20,000,000 acres, or 31,000 square miles. The 
fisheries are the greatest of the world, the output in 1913 
having been 4,450,000 cases of salmon, with 48 1-pound 
cans per case; besides quantities of salted and frozen 
salmon, herring, and halibut. The seal-fur products run 
into fortunes every year. And the mineral output for 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


311 


1912, according to the United States Geological Survey, 
was $18,900,000, of which $15,450,000 was in gold, 
$3,014,000 in copper, $220,000 in silver; and in marble, 
gypsum, tin, etc., $220,000. Eight copper mines and 
twenty-seven lode gold mines have been in successful 
operation during the year. Some oil wells operating 
pumping plants near Katalla have produced petroleum, 
which was refined locallv and marketed for local use. 
Among the gold mines the Treadwell Mine, in Southern 
Alaska, must be mentioned, which, with 5,000 tons daily 
capacity, has paid already $55,000,000 and has ore 
blocked out which will last fifty years longer and net 
over 100 million dollars. 

“This great Territory, with more than twice as much 
water-line as the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the 
United States; with her vastly greater open harbor shore 
line than the Scandinavian Peninsula; with agricultural 
possibilities that are a revelation to the average person 
—the great Sutsina Valley alone being 80 miles wide 
and 125 miles long—and greatly in excess of those of 
Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland, which coun¬ 
tries have 12 millions population; with grazing lands 
North of the Yukon for 10 millions of reindeer, and 
South of the Yukon for as many cattle; with all these 
immense resources Alaska was only 50 years ago re¬ 
ferred to as “the frozen North,” and rejected by men 
of affairs as a great, frigid, ice-covered district.” 

The important facts about Alaska’s resources have not 
been nearly all mentioned by Congressman Falconer. It is 
an Alaskan peculiarity which has been but very little com¬ 
mented on, that a prolific nature has not only furnished that 
country with immense quantities of mineral wealth, but also 
with the best of quality. Where gold is found in quartz, as 
near Valdez, the ore which contains it, is not seldom worth 
more than $1000 per ton. So is the copper region lying 
between the Northwest slopes of the Wrangell Mountains 
and the Chittina River not only the largest copper field on 
Earth, but the ore contains in some of the mines opened as 


312 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


much as from 50 to 79 per cent copper, promising to make 
the mines the richest ones found anywhere. The oil so far 
obtained in the Katalla district is of excellent quality, and 
promises also to flow in great quantities. But the coal has 
both quality and quantity, which makes it one of the three 
greatest resources of Alaska: gold, copper and coal. It is 
needed there to smelt the gold and copper bearing ores, and 
it is needed in the Pacific Coast States to manufacture steel. 
The correspondent of one of the great Pacific Coast papers 
writes from Alaska: 

“The day when the opening of the coal fields of 
Bering River and Matanuska will revolutionize the trade 
condition on the entire Pacific Coast is within measur¬ 
able distance. The development of these coal fields will 
place 50,000 people in Alaska within five years. This will 
increase the trade of the Coast States with the North 
from $50,000,000 per annum to $500,000,000. It means 
that the steel trade will be revolutionized, for instead of 
paying $20.00 a ton freight on steel from Pittsburg—the 
original cost of the steel many times repeated—the steel 
goods will be manufactured on the Pacific Coast. 

“Furthermore Alaska’s own need for high-grade 
fuels for smelting and other purposes can be supplied 
only from the Alaska fields, unless it is transported for 
many thousands of miles. The cost of transporting of 
fuel from the Atlantic Coast or from the inland fields 
of China to Alaska prohibits their use in the North, if 
used for the purpose of smelting any but the very high¬ 
est grade of ore.” 

The question how Japan can be benefited by the con¬ 
quest of Alaska, and the condition of her people bettered 
financially and economically, is fully answered by the above 
quotations from American Official Reports about the natural 
resources and climatic conditions of Alaska. These reports 
tell the Japanese that if they possess that great and rich Ter¬ 
ritory, millions of their farmers who are now starving in their 
native country can find homes there on fertile virgin land 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 313 

which will support them in affluence. Millions of laboring 
men will find work at good wages in the Alaska gold, copper, 
tin, and coal-mines. The gold will fill the empty treasury of 
the Japanese government, pay off the national debt, reduce 
the high taxes, and furnish the means to enlarge the Japan¬ 
ese army and navy. The Alaska copper will be shipped to 
foreign countries as an export article for which there is a 
constantly growing market. The Katalla and Bering Sea coal 
will enable the Japanese who can get in China an 
abundance of good iron ore, to manufacture their own 
steel, and cease to import that most valuable metal for the 
construction of their ships, guns, and machinery. Besides 
that, the Alaska coal will, through its superiority, take the 
place of the British Vancouver coal, and supply every coun¬ 
try bordering on the Pacific and Indian Ocean, and bring, 
together with the exported copper, many millions of dollars 
every year to the Japanese government, while the Aiaska oil 
will supersede the Java and American oil now imported for 
the home use of the Japanese. 

When Alaska is a province of Japan, that country, in¬ 
stead of being, as it is now, the poorest of the great world 
powers, will be one of the richest and, with its quickly in¬ 
creasing population, and its present military system, soon also 
the most powerful one. And since the ruling Oligarchs have, 
after mature deliberation with their talented military and 
naval officials, become convinced that Alaska, if once in their 
grasp, cannot be wrested again from it by the United States, 
the Samurai statesmen of the Privy Council would have lost 
not only their cunning but, indeed, their common sense, if 
they were to back out of their war-policy of 1869, now, when 
it proffers them the most extraordinary success. There is, in 
fact, no other military and naval power in existence that 
would not, if it had the same opportunity that Japan has now, 
speedily grasp it. The fact that the great majority of the 


314 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


American people and their government do not believe this to 
be true, does not change the fact, but renders the conquest 
of Alaska by Japan so much more certain. Every other 
nation but the people of the United States have, while wit¬ 
nessing the continuously increasing military and naval prep¬ 
arations of Japan, understood that they would lead to war, 
and not be a meaningless plaything of the Japanese Rulers, 
every one of whom sees in Genghis Khan and Tamerlane 
not only their race relatives, but their prototypes whose 
example they must follow. 


4. JAPANESE WAR SPIES IN THE UNITED STATES 

All along the Pacific Coast, from Alaska down to Pana¬ 
ma, Japan’s Rulers have had their spies at work to supply 
their war office with every possible information needed by 
an invading fleet and army. In Alaska there are Japanese 
who have, since 15 years, studied the topography of the 
country, and other matters of interest to hostile invaders. 
There is one of them, a very intelligent man, who, formerly 
has lived in San Francisco, who, through his employment as 
U. S. mail carrier and freighter, has obtained a thorough 
knowledge of all the trails and roads in that country, while 
others are able to point out good landing places for trans¬ 
ports and men-of-war. That some, if not all, of these Japan¬ 
ese in Alaska are in communication with the government of 
their country, is indicated by a trip of Commander Tokutaro 
Hiroga, of the Imperial navy, to Alaska in September, 1911. 
He came from Washington, D. C., where he is naval attache 
to the Japanese Embassy, and took, at Seattle, the steamer 
“Admiral Sampson” for Valdez. His purpose, as stated to 
the newspapers, was to make “a tour of Alaska.” If it had 
been a Russian or German naval officer who had chosen that 
time of the year, near the end of the summer season, to “tour” 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


315 


Alaska, the cry of a Russian or German “peril” would no 
doubt have been raised in some of the sensational newspapers 
of the Pacific Coast; but as it was a Japanese officer, noth¬ 
ing out of the ordinary was seen in his. visit, although it is 
certain that he came to receive reports, to view the different 
landing places, or on some similar errand. 

But the espionage was not confined to Alaska. The 
Panama Canal will be an important factor in case of a 
Japan-American war, to be kept open by one, and to be 
destroyed or blocked up by the other people. The Japanese 
government' got all the information it needed about the canal, 
with true Samurai cunning, by the aid of the American 
Authorities in Washington, D. C. In May, 1912, the Interna¬ 
tional Navigation Convention met in Philadelphia, being com¬ 
posed of one or two delegates from each of the interested 
countries. But Japan sent five representatives, the large 
number being explained by the leading member, Teisuka 
Harada, with the statement that they had come to get 
information which they intended to utilize at similar work 
in Japan. They intended in America to examine the Mis¬ 
sissippi River improvements, and the engineering work on the 
Panama Canal. This ruse worked successfully. Mr. Harada 
obtained from the Washington Authorities permission to 
spend, with some of his engineers, sufficient time at the Canal 
to make observations and examinations which may, in case 
of war with the United States, enable the Japanese who can 
enter into the Canal zone by way of Columbia,'to cause, with 
the use of dynamite, new slides at the Culebra Cut, or other 
injuries to the canal so as to render it impassable, if the 
invaders should desire such a blockade. 

Another unmistakable case of espionage was discovered, 
in October, 1911, in the State of Washington. A young, 
Japanese was detected near Pasco, Washington, taking 
photographs of the foundation works of bridges of the 


316 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


Northern Pacific R. R. When brought before the superin¬ 
tendent of the company, he acknowledged that he was living 
in Japan, and had graduated from the Nippon College. He 
claimed to be employed by the Northern Pacific R. R. Co., 
but had nothing to prove it, by credentials or in any other 
way. But the suit case he had with him betrayed him, for 
it contained a large number of tracings, negatives, and pic¬ 
tures of bridges in the States of Washington, Oregon, Idaho 
and Montana, of railroads terminating at Seattle, Tacoma 
and Portland. And the most suspicious part of his work 
was that he was particularly interested in getting photographs 
taken from the bottom, showing the bridge piers and the 
mechanical devices for moving the draws, evidently with the 
purpose of ascertaining how the bridges could easily be 
destroyed. As there was nobody to complain against 
his doings before a court, he was allowed to depart with all 
his photographs which were, probably, soon after sent to the 
Japanese government. 


5. JAPAN WILL EXPLOIT ALASKA THOROUGHLY 

At what part or parts of Alaska the Japanese will land, 
none but of their own blood can tell. No white race man is 
taken to such an extent into the confidence of the Ruling 
Powers as to be allowed to learn their military secrets. But 
that Alaska is to be conquered by them is well known, not 
only to the low-class Japanese, but even to their race rela¬ 
tives, the Indians of North America. In 1913 the Canadian 
Mounted Police noticed that the Indians who lived near 
the boundary line of Alaska had, of late, become restless and 
shown an inclination to refractoriness. When reproved by 
the officers for the change in their demeanor, some of them 
answered that there would be greater changes as soon as the 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


31 7 


Japanese had obtained control of the country. The officers 
reported the matter to their superiors through whom it got 
into the Canadian and American press. But inquiries made 
by the officers for any further information were fruitless; 
the Indians being either unwilling or unable to tell more 
than that the Japanese would come to the Northwest of 
America. 

It can be foreseen that troops will be landed at several 
of the most important places of Alaska, and re-inforced dur¬ 
ing the whole open season. At the first landing made the 
Japanese flag will be hoisted, and Alaska declared to be a 
‘‘Province of Japan”. From that moment the law of Japan 
will prevail according to which the whole Territory, with 
every branch of the sea or ocean touching it, belongs to the 
Emperor, which means the Samurai Oligarchs. The rights 
of foreigners will probably be respected regarding their prop¬ 
erty, also the private property of Americans. But all the land 
and water, the trees, the mineral in the ground or above it, 
the animals of any kind on land or in the sea, are to be con¬ 
trolled by the Japanese Authorities, who will, immediately, 
organize a provincial government, and charge ground rent 
to the owners of buildings, docks, and other improvements, 
and order the departure of undesirable people. 

As it will take at least a year before the United States 
can make any effort of re-conquest, the invaders will have 
ample time to construct such defenses of the coast as they 
have, probably long before, mapped out. The harbors will 
be protected by submarines and mines, others closed up by 
floating or hidden torpedoes, and lighthouses changed so as 
to be only guides to Japanese ships, and traps to American 
vessels. As there will be, probably, 500,000 soldiers landed 
during the first year, a large number of them can be em¬ 
ployed to develop the country. Mines will be worked, farm¬ 
land cleared, new roads built, and the old ones made impass- 


318 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


able, railroads located, and construction commenced, the fish¬ 
eries and canneries attended to, Japanese hunters placed in 
charge of the seals and game, saw-mills built, and timber pro¬ 
vided for the building of houses, docks, and other purposes. 
Connecting lines with the Overland Canadian railroad will 
be one of the first improvements commenced, with a view of 
bringing Alaska in safe and constant communication with 
the outside world, whence the Japanese may draw their sup¬ 
plies, arms, and ammunition, if that should become necessary; 
and where they can sell their Alaska products. As the Rul¬ 
ing Oligarchs have despotic powers under their constitution, 
as has been shown in a previous chapter, and the people are 
enthusiastically supporting the government in the conquest 
of Alaska, the systematic opening of that gigantic natural 
treasure land will progress wonderfully, and furnish Japan 
an ever increasing source of wealth, sufficient to pay, from 
the very beginning, the cost of the war. If she can retain her 
new “Province,” the golden age of the “Greater” Japanese 
Empire will date from the day when the invasion of Alaska 
was commenced. 


6. CAN ALASKA BE RE-CONQUERED BY THE UNITED 
STATES? 

The question whether Alaska can be freed from the 
grasp of the land-hungry Asiatics will, of course, be answered 
by the Americans in the affirmative, but their military and 
naval authorities may have some doubts about it. The Jap¬ 
anese Rulers, though, are firmly convinced that it can not 
be done. They confidently expect that the American Atlantic 
squadron will not be able to come quickly enough to the 
Pacific Coast to prevent Japan from taking possession of 
Alaska when she is ready to do so. And in that case the 
Japanese fleet will have an opportunity to destroy the Pacific 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


319 


squadron of the American navy, and, with her submarines, 
attack and destroy the navy yards at Mare Island and Brem¬ 
erton, invade with sufficiently large armies the Puget Sound 
harbors and those of California, and capture the American 
army posts which are unable to withstand the enemy. 

After having succeeded in destroying the small Pacific 
American fleet, there will be nothing to prevent the Japanese 
from obtaining possession of the American Islands in the 
Pacific Ocean. The Sandwich Islands, where 60,000 Japan¬ 
ese workmen are ready to co-operate with the Japanese fleet, 
cannot resist the latter for any length of time. And the 
Samoan Islands and the Philippines are ready to fall, like 
ripe fruit, into the hands of the Japanese. The capture of 
these American possessions will cause a financial loss of 
hundreds of millions of dollars invested there in improve¬ 
ments and otherwise by the United States,—also the destruc¬ 
tion of all the civilizatory work done there by the Americans 
among the natives,—and, worst of all, the maltreatment of 
several thousands of American men, women and children, as 
prisoners of war; for it must be borne in mind that the Tar¬ 
taric race hatred of the Japanese Rulers against the Ameri¬ 
cans, the cause of which has been explained in the last chap- 
te hereof, is far more intense and savage than their feeling 
of revenge against the Germans. 

American admirals and generals, patriotic men who have 
perceived the threatening danger of a Japanese invasion, have 
publicly warned the people, and indirectly thereby the Wash¬ 
ington Authorities, since 1912, that the whole Pacific Coast 
of the United States is open to such an invasion, and invites 
an enemy to make use of the opportunity. But the warning 
has not been heeded! 

And yet a Japanese invasion of those Pacific Coast 
States would be a misfortune the severity of which the 
Americans will hardly be able to imagine. Not even the old 


320 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

Southern people could do so who, fifty years ago, had to bear 
the cruel hardships of “Sherman’s march to the sea”, because 
in the Civil War the combatants were of the same race and 
nationality, while in a Japanese invasion the inhabitants of 
the Pacific Coast States would have to endure the galling 
humiliation of being vanquished by the people of a lower, 
half-civilized race. It is probable that the Japanese soldiers 
would, as in the Chinese and Russian wars, be kept by the 
officers in proper bounds, in order to show their superiority 
over the white race people of Southeastern Europe. But there 
is no doubt that from a business standpoint the invasion 
would be made as hard as possible, for the purpose of obtain¬ 
ing quickly from the United States government a large war- 
contribution. 

For it must be considered that if a hundred thousand 
troops came to occupy San Francisco, and fifty thousand the 
Puget Sound cities, with, perhaps, another fifty thousand at 
the port of Los Angeles, all of them would have to be fed 
and housed by the people of those cities. And as the rail¬ 
roads would be in the hands of the invaders or destroyed by 
them, so that nobody could leave the Coast, and nothing be 
brought to it from the East, starvation and disease caused 
by fear, excitement and scarcity of food would appear in 
very few weeks. The money in all the banks of the Coast 
would, probably, hardly suffice to satisfy the invaders, and 
the United States government have to pay perhaps a billion 
of dollars to the Japanese to leave the Coast, except Alaska, 
which they would certainly keep and defend against any 
American army sent to re-conquer the territory. 

The duty of the federal government to rid the Coast 
States ,by every sacrifice necessary, from the hostile Japanese, 
who, through the neglect of the National Authorities, have 
been enabled to invade the country, can not be questioned; 
and the Samurai Oligarchs must not be expected to be mod- 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 321 

est in their demands. They well know that the United States 
will wage a fierce war against Japan, and try hard to obtain 
full satisfaction from her. Nor will the invaders fail to 
remember the antipathy of the Pacific Coast people shown 
against the Asiatic workmen; and they would not be Japan¬ 
ese if they were not to take revenge against the Americans 
when they have the power to do so. It can, therefore, be 
expected that every American vessel in the invaded harbors 
will be taken as contraband of war, and that the fleets of 
ships so captured will be loaded with arms, guns, ammuni¬ 
tion, machinery, and material of different kinds found in the 
arsenals, forts, and navy-yards, the property of the United 
States. There will, probably, be added machinery for saw¬ 
mills, mines and smelters, also clothing, and all sorts of food¬ 
stuffs for men and beast, which the Japanese may take or 
buy, at their own price, from the helpless American business 
men. In this manner the needs of the invaders of Alaska can 
be provided for, whither the captured ships are to carry 
their loads of pillage, while the war contribution paid in gold 
will be taken to Japan to be used for her war expenses. This 
sort of robbery is permissible in war. And if it were not, 
the Japanese government would make it so. For much 
worse things have been done in other late wars by civilized 
nations; and the Japanese are well aware of it. 

Of course, the whole American people will rise and or¬ 
ganize, as quickly as men and money can do it, an army, and 
get ready for the re-conquest of Alaska. But to enter upon 
a discussion of the probabilities of the ensuing war would be 
an idle task. Most all the modern wars fought during the 
last fifty years have been extremely uncertain, and surprised 
the rest of the world. America was surprised at the outcome 
of the Prussian-Austrian war in 1866; and, in 1870, the peo¬ 
ple of the United States were almost unanimous in the belief 
that the French would march as victors to Berlin; but the 


322 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


terms of peace were dictated to them in Paris. In the South 
African war the Boers, a people of 250,000 men. women and 
children, fought England, the empire on which the sun does 
not set, and whose subjects are counted by the hundreds of 
millions, for many months; and the English needed the help 
of the Australians, the Canadians, and, last but not least, of 
the American mule , before they were victorious. In unex¬ 
pectedly quick time the United States vanquished proud 
Spain, but had to battle more than ten years before it could 
subdue the savages of the Philippines. And while Japan 
was the football of the white race nations in 1854, fifty years 
later her dwarfish people beat the Russian colossus in battle 
after battle, and are, at the present time, one of the greatest 
military and naval powers on earth, which dares show an 
hostile front to any nation of Europe and America. 

In weighing Japan’s chances in a war with the United 
States, several important facts must be considered, the prin¬ 
cipal one being Japan’s preparedness, and the unpreparedness 
of the American Empire. The former, also, has generals and 
admirals who have the experience of two successful wars 
of invasion, and who have plotted and planned, together with 
numerous other able Samurai, since 1869, for this very war 
with the United States. And their government has left 
nothing undone since the Russian war, even brought their 
country to the edge of bankruptcy, to render their people vic¬ 
torious in the coming fray. On the other hand, the military 
and naval authorities of the United States have had no 
experience in a great war, and never yet been called upon to 
consider the preparations needed for a war with Japan. The 
latter has, consequently, an army of four millions well drilled 
soldiers, half a million of which are veterans, and the United 
States has one-hundred millions of people and an unlimited 
supply of money, but only an army of 180,000 drilled sol¬ 
diers. And if it raises an army of volunteers, they are raw 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


323 


recruits whom to draft, equip, and make soldiers, more than 
a year’s time is needed. 

The Japanese and American navies are nearly alike in 
number of ships, guns, and men. But Japan’s is all at home, 
ready to come out and fight, while the American ships are 
divided in two squadrons. If Japan starts the war before 
the Atlantic fleet can reach the Pacific Ocean, the Pacific 
squadron will be destroyed by the Japanese fleet of super¬ 
dreadnoughts. When the latter meets, later on, the Atlantic 
squadron, it has the advantage of possessing three and, per¬ 
haps, four more super-dreadnoughts of the largest kind than 
the American fleet has, and of using in its shell the Shimose 
explosive, which, when striking a ship, develops poisonous 
gases. In the battle in the Sea of Japan these shells con¬ 
tributed considerably to the defeat of the Russian fleet. 

If, however, notwithstanding these disadvantages, the 
ability of the American officers and the heroism of the sailors 
and marines gives their ships the victory, and the naval fight 
ends in the destruction of the Japanese navy, the military 
must finish the war in Alaska, where, probably, no less than 
500,000 Japanese soldiers are to be met and defeated. They 
will have, without doubt, a year or more time to prepare 
their defenses; and that year’s time makes them acquainted 
with the country and accustomed to the climate, which ren¬ 
ders them, as every Alaskan knows, fit to do twice as much 
in labor and travel as a newcomer—a “Cheecharco”. Hence 
the American army needs more troops than the Japanese. 
To transport several hundred thousand men from the Pacific 
Coast states to Alaska, and land them on a coast defended 
by a large Japanese army, is a gigantic task which will take 
time, and when finally crowned with success will have cost 
the United States the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, 
and billions of dollars. 

This loss of life could be avoided if the United States 


324 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


were able to cut off all food-supplies of the Japanese invad¬ 
ers. But to do so, it would need the assistance of Canada. 
The American blockading squadron could stop the Japanese 
from fishing on a large scale, also the direct importation o£ 
rice from Japan or China. But the Japanese could get both 
these, their staple food stuffs, by way of Canada, unless the 
Dominion government were to stretch the law of the white 
nations in this war of a foreign race against a white race 
people, by declaring all food stuffs to be contraband of war. 
The Canadians of the Northwest would gladly assist in keep¬ 
ing the “Yellow Perir’ away from the borders of their own 
country. In British Columbia they have used every means in 
their power, for years, to limit Asiatic immigration in their 
province, and in 1913 resorted to the radical scheme of en¬ 
acting a law forbidding, for a period of time, all foreign im¬ 
migration of any kind in order to keep the Hindoos and 
Japanese away. But Canada is a dependency of England, 
and the Samurai Rulers who have, since years, deliberated 
with their leading followers over all the difficulties connected 
with the conquest of Alaska and the war with the United 
States, are firmly convinced that the British government will 
not permit the Canadian Authorities or their people to violate 
the Anglo-Japanese treaty. For that very purpose the treaty 
has been renewed by Japan. 

Under these circumstances it will be impossible to starve 
the Japanese out of Alaska. They must be expelled by force 
of arms. But if the United States should fail to drive them 
out, and Great Britain were to look on indifferently, while 
the American Republic suffered the deep humiliation of los¬ 
ing Alaska, the English policy of friendship with Japan 
would, in not a distant future, redound upon the British 
Empire, the first step to whose dismemberment would be 
made through Japan’s securing of a foothold on the North 
American Continent, It has been stated in a previous chap- 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


325 


ter that the editor of the “Japanese Mail” was the secret 
diplomatic agent of England, and furnished his home govern¬ 
ment with information about Japan’s war plans. It can not 
be doubted that he has notified the British Authori¬ 
ties about Japan’s intention to conquer Alaska, but it is just 
as certain that he has not been allowed to learn that Nippon 
has any belligerent plans against Canada. The Japanese trust 
no man of the white race fully; they will deceive him in the 
end. They know that England only feigns friendship for 
the United States, and will gladly see it lose the Territory of 
Alaska to the Japanese whose final schemes of conquest 
none but of her own blood will be allowed to know, as they 
have declared in their book, “Japan by the Japanese”. Thus 
England will walk into her own trap; for the road of the 
conquering hordes to Canada leads through Alaska. 


7. THE RACE IDEALS OF THE RULING CLASS OF 
JAPAN 

The purposes of the secret foreign policy adopted by 
the Japanese government in 1869 have been stated in a pre¬ 
vious chapter. But they are not the highest aims of the am¬ 
bitious Samurai. The writings, in past centuries, of a few 
high-minded men of the upper class have not failed to pro¬ 
duce in the minds of the leading low-class Samurai a desire 
for greater, if not nobler, deeds than fighting for conquest 
only. For, as they have never received any religious train¬ 
ing which could have purified their thoughts and ideas, even 
their better feelings have become impregnated with the pre¬ 
vailing vices of their class—inordinate self-conceit and pride. 
That they are the mainspring of their actions can be seen 
from the writings of numerous Samurai authors, although 
some may call their conceit, euphoniously, ‘ambition’, or 
‘sense of honor’. But there are others who broadly hint that 


326 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


the Japanese plan great accomplishments as the fruit of their 
race ideals. These plans also have determined the future of 
the neighboring East Asiatic people. Baron Kaneko has 
written on the subject: 

“While we are laboring for ourselves, our most ear¬ 
nest desire is that the kindred people who are our neigh¬ 
bors shall labor in the same manner for themselves, and 
endeavor,, as we have done, to raise themselves above 
their present condition. That sums up, in a word, 
Japan’s position among Eastern nations. We are in duty 
bound, and in interest forced, to do all that lies in our 
power to assist our neighbors in the path we have fol¬ 
lowed.” 

That means that the East Asiatics should endeavor to 
become modern military powers like Japan, whereby they 
would also get on the Japanese path of progress. But Saburo 
Shimada, the well known parliamentarian and writer, partly 
lifts the veil with which the Samurai Rulers and their fol¬ 
lowers have so far covered their plans about their future 
national achievements. He writes: 

“Civilization is not a thing exclusively possessed 
by any one race of human beings; it is a possession com¬ 
mon to all. Any race or tribe that will exert itself to 
the utmost to promote its own prosperity ought to have 
a right to enjoy freely the natural effects of its exertion; 
on no account should it be interfered with by others, so 
long as its doings do not injuriously affect their interests. 
It is to be greatly regretted that such a simple and plain 
reason is frequently overlooked by the white or Cau¬ 
casian race who, accustomed as it is, for ages past, to 
enjoy all the advantages of a superior race, has at last 
begun to regard itself as the only civilized race of the 
world. The peoples belonging to their race consider 
themselves seriously wronged whenever they see others 
trying to gain ground as a strong and wealthy nation. 
They do not hesitate to declare that the world is ex¬ 
pressly destined for their exclusive possession, and that 
the others have nothing whatever to do with the world 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 327 

and its civilization. But it goes without saying that 
such presumptious views are nothing short of a scandal 
to humanity and human rights. No nation or individual 
can be excluded from the right of enjoying the fruit of 
its own labor. This ought to hold good in all places and 
at all times. A majority of the white men profess that 
they believe in the only true God as their heavenly 
father, and in the universal brotherhood of men. Is not, 
then, their belief incompatible with the distinction they 
so sharply make between them and the other races of 
men? 

“The Japanese have a noble ambition to bring back 
the Orientals to life and activity. The gratification of 
this notion, however, is not based upon any racial bias 
which is nothing more than the difference in color and 
physical constitution of the human race. Strictly speak¬ 
ing, the racial difference will diminish with the develop¬ 
ment of science and of the means of communication, 
which will bring the nations into closer contact, anni¬ 
hilating all the differences in customs and manners. 

“Taking the present state of humanity in consid¬ 
eration, the Europeans make assertion that they are the 
race which govern and control the destiny of mankind. 
While there is some truth in this statement, man’s intel¬ 
lectual and moral progress does not depend upon the 
difference in race. Those who lay stress upon the dif¬ 
ference in race, look at the present situation only, and 
ignore entirely the past and the future. If the millions 
of the Orientals are destined to rise again, Japan will 
play the part of their savior. Nothing can be happier 
than to restore the race whose fate has been sealed for 
so many centuries. 

“We sincerely hope that those portions of the white 
race who look upon Japan with suspicion, thinking that 
Japan will unite the Orientals to oppose the white people, 
will change their minds and regard the situation with 
impartial eyes. Japan desires to raise the positions of 
hundreds of millions of Oriental people so that they may 
share the ‘heavenly grace' with the white race.” 

This statement about Japan’s future policies regarding 


328 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


her Asiatic neighbors is, like all similar information published 
by men prominently connected with the government, not 
merely the author’s personal opinion, but an expression of 
the intentions of the Samurai Oligarchs and the aristrocracy 
allied with it. In this case it is even more; it is a declaration 
to the outside world of the political race ideals of the intel¬ 
ligent class of the Japanese, which they defiantly announce 
to the white race nations; although, at the same time, they 
hide, with Samurai cunning, the manner in which these ideals 
are to be accomplished. 

Stated in plain words, that declaration denies the superi¬ 
ority of the prevailing Christian civilization, and the right 
of the white race to force it upon any race or tribe that has 
its own manner of living and governing itself. It denies the 
supremacy of the white race as a permanent factor in the 
world’s history, and predicts that other races will take its 
place in the future, as they have done in the past. It asserts 
that the white race will, in the near future, be merged with 
the other races into one, and it proclaims it to be the highest 
aim of Japan to restore the Orientals of East Asia to their 
former high condition. Japan will act as the “savior” of 
their hundreds of millions by enabling them to share in the 
possession of the zvorld’s goods with the white race. To 
mitigate their threatening policy, the declaration concludes 
with the assurance that Japan does not intend “to unite the 
Orientals against the white people.” 


8. HOW JAPAN WILL HELP HER ORIENTAL 
NEIGHBORS 

The Orientals of which Japan wants to be the “savior” 
are the natives of China, East India, and the Islands in the 
Pacific and Indian Ocean which are situated near Asia. They 
can presently not be “saved” because, with the exception of 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


329 


China, they are under the control of foreign nations, which 
must be dispossessed before the natives can be organized into 
a political union, an undertaking which Japan has presently 
not the power to carry out. And as China threatens to fall 
to pieces, the promise that Japan does not intend to unite the 
Orientals of East Asia against the white race can readily 
be believed; but the question arises, what other means her 
government intends to employ in restoring her race-relatives 
to prosperity and power. 

The people of East Asia are, since centuries, almost 
yearly visited by the gaunt specter of starvation, which has 
demoralized the lower classes to such an extent that they are 
unable to assist in any national regeneration of their coun¬ 
tries, while their higher classes, being not guided by any 
religious or moral principles of charity and humanity, are 
apathetic spectators of the sufferings of their fellow men. 
Among the natives of East Asia it is a tradition that this con¬ 
dition of their people dates from the advent of the white men 
among them. There is some truth in that belief, but other 
agencies have also done a great deal to bring about the exist¬ 
ing deplorable conditions, foremost among which is the ter¬ 
rible curse of over-population, which increases from year to 
year. The Japanese people commenced, during the pro¬ 
longed Tokugawa peace era, to suffer from this evil, because 
the arable land of their country was limited, while the people 
rapidly increased, and were too ignorant to employ them¬ 
selves in utilizing their other natural resources. The Samurai 
government solved the question of a threatening over-popula¬ 
tion by acquiring more land, and is, as has been shown here¬ 
inbefore, on the verge of another war of conquest. There 
are possibilities of enhancing the productivity of farmland by 
scientific drainage, irrigating, fertilizing, and the use of elec¬ 
trical light in such a manner that the bad effects of inclem¬ 
ent weather are abolished, the favorable seasons of the year 


330 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


lengthened, night turned into day, and more and better crops 
obtained than under the old farming methods. In Europe, 
where the population is rapidly increasing, this work has 
already been commenced, with highly satisfactory results. 
But the Japanese have not yet advanced so far. To them 
the acquisition of more land seems to be the only manner in 
which the over-population of East Asia can be relieved, and 
the people made prosperous again. 

That Japan does not intend to conquer any Asiatic pos¬ 
sessions of Russia for a new Mongolian-Tartar empire has 
been proven, as stated before, by her late treaty with that 
country. The Oligarchs know that the members of the 
lower classes of China and India who are able to get the 
money needed to emigrate, have chosen, long ago, the same 
foreign country as their future home, which so greatly at¬ 
tracts the Japanese, namely, the Continent of North America. 
Ever since, “in the days of ’49”, the first Chinamen came to 
California to work in the gold mines, they have recommended 
the Pacific Coast country of North America, with their hun¬ 
dreds of millions of acres of vacant land, to their country¬ 
men. And at the present time, among the natives of East 
Asia, from the icy plains of Siberia to the sun-burnt fields 
of tropical India, and from the Pacific Ocean a thousand 
miles or more back into darkest Mongolia, there are many 
millions who have no greater desire than to emigrate to the 
boundless country of North America, where there is room 
for the hundreds of millions of Asiatics who are now starv¬ 
ing in their overcrowded ancient homes. No country on Earth 
was probably ever so much praised and desired as a home 
by so many unfortunate human beings as the Pacific Coast 
of the United States and the Provinces of Canada. And when 
the news reached them that the wljite race peoples of these 
countries had stopped the East Asiatic immigration, because 
they wanted to keep their vacant land for white race immi- 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


331 


grants, a feeling of fierce hatred against the peoples of Amer¬ 
ica was engendered in the East Asiatics. 

That this hatred is shared by the Japanese can be read 
between the lines of the writings of the Samurai authors. 
The future of which Shimada speaks so enthusiastically, is 
the time when the offspring of the hordes of Genghis Khan 
and Tamerlane shall be aroused by Japan as their “savior,” 
from their lethargic condition, and under her leadership re¬ 
gain the dominion over the white race peoples, although not 
as before in Asia, but in the Americas. Shimada did not 
give any reason why such a tremendous change in the polit¬ 
ical situation of the world should be brought about, because 
by doing so he would have opened the eyes of the foreign 
nations to the danger threatening the white race from Japan. 
And his own people need not be told why the yellow race 
should supersede the whites. They learn the reason of that 
desired change in their colleges and universities when study¬ 
ing the history of the Christian nations as taught from the 
Japanese standpoint. And as the students are mostly off¬ 
spring of the military retainers’ class, they understand Shi- 
mada’s allusion to the past and future, and wait anxiously 
for the time when Japan, as the “savior of the Orientals,” 
shall bring to their hundreds of millions not only prosperity, 
but the ancient supremacy over all the other branches of the 
human race. By the following reasoning of the Samurai dia¬ 
lecticians, gathered from their writings and teachings, the 
Japanese are taught to believe in the necessity and justice of 
re-establishing the political predominance of the yellow race, 
which is the race-ideal of the Samurai. 

9. WHY THE YELLOW RACE WOULD RULE THE 
WORLD. 

“The history of the Christian nations of Europe 
teaches that, after the -discovery of America by Colum- 


332 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


bus, and the way around the Cape of Good Hope in 
South Africa to the Indies by the Portuguese, in all the 
newly discovered countries, except China, the Christian 
religion, the religion of love, and the civilization of the 
white race Christian people was introduced by the latter 
with fire and sword. The Cross was always accom¬ 
panied by the deadly gun; and the endavors made to 
save the natives’ souls were never stronger than the 
efforts made by the soldiers who came with the priests, 
to find the natives’ gold and other treasure. 

“Existing civilizations, no matter how satisfactory 
they were to the respective people, and how long estab¬ 
lished, were destroyed by the Christian priests and war- 
riors who, in doing so, committed atrocious acts of bar¬ 
barity and cruelty, as told by the history of the conquest 
of Peru, Mexico, the East Indies, and other countries. 
The old governments were destroyed, and new Christian 
ones instituted which took possession of the public lands 
and their natural resources, and forced the natives by 
taxes levied upon them to provide the financial means to 
pay the soldiers and officials who were employed to keep 
the people in subjugation. 

“That this is the ‘modus operandi’ employed yet, at 
the present time, by certain European nations who claim 
to have the highest modern civilization, came to light in 
the discussions between France and Germany regarding 
the land which the former country had ceded to the 
latter in order to settle their dispute about Morocco. 
The territory between the boundary of old Cameroon 
and the Lobay and Sangha rivers in Africa forms the 
principal portion of the ceded land. Its Northerly part 
is grazing land, while the Southerly region is covered 
with virgin forest. It has a population of a quarter mil¬ 
lion, or a trifle more, inhabitants who are kept in obedi¬ 
ence to the French law and the tax-collector by three 
hundred police-soldiers. 

“The French government sells concessions to tap 
the caoutchouc trees for the rubber they yield, and to hunt 
and kill elephants for their ivory tusks, for a high price 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


333 


to the wealthy corporation? who make large fortunes out 
of their privileges. 

“The natives are not permitted to tap any trees or 
collect any ivory excepting for the licensed companies 
which may employ them. Any violator of this rule is 
severely punished. But every native man or woman 
must pay five francs ($1.00), a year, taxes for the privi¬ 
lege of living under the rule of a civilized white race 
nation. What punishment is inflicted upon the delin¬ 
quent tax-payer the reports do not state; but it must 
be severe, because they add that in the Northerly part 
of the district, where there are no trees, and consequently 
no money to be earned by the natives, their villages 
show signs of getting deserted by the inhabitants who 
wander around, to find a district where they can earn 
the tax-money necessary to obtain a home in their own 
African wilderness. It is hardly necessary to add that 
the French government is not the only one guilty of such 
tactics to obtain money out of its colonies. The almost 
unbelievable atrocities committed against the natives of 
the Congo district by the officials of Belgian corpora¬ 
tions, who cut the natives’ hands off who did not fur¬ 
nish the desired quantity of rubber, had to be denounced 
in the whole European press before the Belgian govern¬ 
ment prohibited the inhuman practice. Other white 
race nations have used in Africa similar means to make 
their colonies profitable investments by robbing the 
natives, first of their lands, then of its natural resources, 
and finally of part of their miserable earnings, which 
they must pay as taxes to the government, to be used for 
the salaries of the tax-collectors and police-soldiers who 
keep the natives from rebelling. 

“Returning to the governments established by the 
European conquerors of America, it is a well known 
historical fact that most of the foreign Rulers or Admin¬ 
istrators of those countries have, during the last cen¬ 
tury, been expelled by the natives, who established new 
republican governments which are generally known to 
be far superior to those previously forced upon the help- 


334 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

less peoples by the fire-arms of the white race Chris¬ 
tian invaders. 

“Christian historians tell of the inhuman cruelties 
committed by the white conquerors at the introduction 
of the Christian religion in those countries; but the Jap¬ 
anese believe that the worst cruelties committed by the 
foreigners of Europe have been caused by the commer¬ 
cial treaties they have forced upon the helpless natives of 
East Asia; and of these the Christian writers have said 
but very little. 

“The Portuguese came to East India in the com¬ 
mencement of the 16th century and brought their reli¬ 
gion; but it found no followers in a country which had 
possessed a great religion 2000 years before Christianity 
existed. After the Portuguese came the Dutch, Eng¬ 
lish and French. They were after the trade of East 
India, the Sunda Islands, and China, and bought the 
goods and treasures of the natives, which they sold at 
a high price in Europe. Gradually, after England 
had got control of India, the latter country was made 
a market for English goods; and when in England large 
factories were opened with steam power, the East Asiatic 
peoples were provided with cheaper goods of many 
kinds than their own mechanics could furnish. Then 
idleness and starvation became the constant guest in 
East India, and gradually also in China, where commer¬ 
cial treaties were forced upon the weak government by 
force of arms, as in East India, and, later on, also in 
Japan. 

“A few years after the first cheap cotton goods 
had been introduced in large quantities in China from 
the great English mills, white foreigners traveling in 
the interior of China found the plains in some provinces 
strewn with the skeletons .of men, women and children. 
They were all that was left of the millions of men and 
their families who used to weave by hand the cloth 
which was now furnished by the British mills. In India 
the same experience was made. Those countries were 
too large, and the roads too bad, or entirely wanting, by 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 335 

which unemployed men could have traveled and looked 
for work in other provinces. 

“In China the situation was made worse by the 
introduction of opium from India, which England en¬ 
forced by a short but decisive war in which the 
modern arms easily prevailed over the ancient Chinese 
weapons. The immense number of Chinese who have 
fallen victims to the deadly use of the British opium 
can not even roughly be estimated. It is an ulcer which 
still corrupts the entrails of the Chinese nation, degrad¬ 
ing it mentally and physically. In India famine through 
the occasional crop failures, which had, before the Eng¬ 
lish rule, been provided against by public and private 
store-houses, became chronic through the absence of 
these stores, and the ease by which, on newly built 
railroads and with better shipping facilities ,the surplus 
crops of each season can be sent away to foreign coun¬ 
tries. 

“Of course the British Authorities have done a great 
humanitarian work by the introduction of improved 
sanitary measures, schools, roads, and in other ways. 
But in return India has to support an army of 150,000 
soldiers, and two armies of officials, one that is in the 
service, and a pensioned one which lives in England from 
the taxes paid by the people of far-away India. The 
industrial condition of that country is hardly curable, as 
long as the introduction of British merchandise con¬ 
tinues, because India has not the necessary fuel, espe¬ 
cially no good coal, to engage in modern industrial work. 
And in China, where it could be done, the introduction 
of it would take many years before benefiting the nation 
at large. 

“For while the steadily increasing importation of 
factory and machine made goods from Europe and 
North America constantly decreases the means of sup¬ 
port for the natives of India and China, they have in¬ 
creased in number with fearful rapidity, so that India 
on her 1% million square miles, not half as much as 
contained by the United States, has a population of 250 
million souls; and China, with her 4% million square 


336 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


rrjiles, nearly one-third of which is composed of unin¬ 
habitable deserts and mountains, must support 450 mil¬ 
lions inhabitants. 

“How does the population of North America com¬ 
pare with that of the East Indies and China? The 
North American Continent, excepting Mexico, was 
reached later by the white race than South America and 
the East Asiatic countries. Its natives soon were made 
the targets of the white invaders’ fire-arms, with such 
dire results that now, 300 years later, the Indians of 
Canada and the United States do not count quite 350,- 
000 souls. And of the eight and one-half millions of 
square miles those two countries embrace, there are not 
more than 50,000 square miles possessed by the original 
owners. The whites have the rest which, although since 
200 years made the dumping place of the European 
overflow population, has not quite 120 milllions, inhab¬ 
itants, which includes 10 millions of negroes, the off¬ 
spring of the African slaves imported by the Puritan 
ship-owners of the New England States. 

“In Europe, including the half-settled plains of Rus¬ 
sia and the mountainous Scandinavian Peninsula, there 
are 100 millions of inhabitants to every million square 
miles of land. In China 125 millions, and in India 150 
millions of people are crowded into one million square 
miles. But in Canada and the United States there ar*, 
not more than fourteen millions men, women and chil¬ 
dren to every million square miles of land, leaving, at 
the ratio of Europe and China, room for 710 millions of 
people, a population one-half of which could, with the 
steadily decreasing birth-rate of the white nations, prob¬ 
ably not be reached in 300 years. And yet, with room 
to spare for so many hundreds of millions for several 
hundred years, the civilized white race peoples of the 
United States and Canada are closing their doors 
against the East Asiatic emigrants who are driven from 
their homes by starvation which has been brought to 
their Asiatic country by the same tyrannical and land- 
hungry white foreigners who have also hunted the 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


337 


American Indians to death, in order to grab their landed 
possessions on the American Continent. 

“The white race peoples justify their invasions of 
the countries occupied by colored races with the self- 
imposed obligation to introduce the Christian religion to 
all the peoples of the Earth; a religion which, while 
teaching universal love, has produced more hatred, 
blood-shed, wars, and cruel persecutions between the 
members of its different confessions, from the year 400 
after the birth of Christ until almost the present time, 
than all the other religions together which have existed 
since historical times. According to latest statistics 
published in Europe, less than 600 millions of people 
out of the estimated total of 1564 millions living human 
beings, are Christians. But those figures are counting 
all the members of the so-called Christian nations as 
Christians, although it is well known that in some Pro¬ 
testant as well as in some Catholic countries a majority 
of their people are atheists or agnostics, and by three 
of the greatest white race, so-called, Christian world- 
powers, the United States, England, and France, the 
teaching of the Christian or any other religion in their 
public schools has, since years, been forbidden by their 
supreme law. 

“And yet the governments of these same nations, 
and, in fact, of all the other white race Christian people, 
have forced the natives of America, Africa, and Asia, 
who are not Christians, since hundreds of years and till 
this very day, to allow the Christian missionaries to 
build their churches in these foreign countries and work 
incessantly to convert the men, women and children of 
the native inhabitants to the Christian religion. Thus 
Japan has, since 1854, been coerced by the white race 
Christian nations of America and Europe to enter into 
treaties with them, by which the Christian religion is 
allowed to be taught there by numerous missionaries 
of the different denominations, notwithstanding the fact 
that they are not wanted there at all by the Japanese 
government. It is the same in China, in East India, and 
in other parts of the Earth. 


338 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


“From the Japanese standpoint this action of the 
white race Christian powers is an injustice, and an 
insult to the people of all the other races who are not 
Christians, and just as injurious to them as the com¬ 
mercial treaties forced upon them by European and 
American men-of-war and soldiers. And the Japanese 
believe to voice the opinion of the 1000 millions of 
people who are so-called heathens, or have a religion 
of their own, when they protest against having the 
religion of 600 millions of real and nominal Christians 
forced upon them by the deadly gun in these modern 
days, as has been done in the past. 

“The Japanese are willing to do more than merely 
protest. As one of the mightiest world powers they 
are determined to use their military and naval strength 
to become the ‘savior’ of their race relatives of China 
and the East Indies, by furnishing millions of them with 
new homes on the boundless vacant lands of North 
America, where they will, under the protection and 
guidance of Japan, be free from the religious and com¬ 
mercial tyranny of the white race nations, and enabled 
to become, as in ancient times, a prosperous people. 
The annual emigration of millions of Chinese and 
Indians to North America will soon be felt in their 
old homes as a means to reduce the over-population, 
bring about better economical conditions, and thus help 
those people to become again the prosperous and power¬ 
ful nations they were centuries ago, before the advent 
of the white race conquerors.” 


10. WHITE RACE CIVILIZATION MEANS PROGRESS 

These are some of the arguments with which the Jap¬ 
anese students in their higher institutes of learning become 
conversant, and which fire the hearts of the youths with 
enthusiasm over Japan’s superior civilization, and with fanat¬ 
ical zeal to assist in carrying out her race ideals for the 
glory of the Japanese people. They do not suspect that, not- 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 339 

withstanding the truthfulness of the historical quotations 
about the conquests of the foreign countries by the Christian 
European nations, and the cruelties committed by them, the 
argumentation of the Samurai writers and teachers, such as 
Saburo Shimada and Professor Nitobe, in favor of substi¬ 
tuting in place of the Christian civilization that of the Jap¬ 
anese, is delusive, being based on the “Philosophy of False¬ 
hood.” The Samurai of modern Japan are too well informed 
not to know that the religious fanaticism which, in past cen¬ 
turies, was the bane of the white race civilization has, since 
more than hundred years, ceased to be its motive power. 
Its place has been to a great extent taken by the altruistic 
precepts of the Decalogue, which the Head of the Christian 
religion has condensed in the two cardinal commands given 
to all human beings, “to love their God and their fellow- 
men.” These commands are not only preached by every 
modern Christian minister and missionary, but they form 
the base of the codes of law in all the countries whose peoples 
live under the Christian civilization. And the progress they 
have thereby made physically, mentally, and morally is the 
wonder of this age. Nothing like it has ever been achieved 
by any branch of the human race under any other civiliza¬ 
tion, in historical times. Hence the people who enjoy the 
blessings of the Christian civilization consider it their duty, 
to impart its precepts to the rest of mankind, in a spirit of 
love. 


11. JAPANESE CIVILIZATION MEANS DESTRUCTION 

What has the civilization of the people of Old and New 
Japan to show as their achievements during the 2500 years 
of their national existence? Nothing of importance or of in¬ 
trinsic value to themselves or mankind; the only art and 
science they have progressed in, being fighting and warring, 


340 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

and of that they have learned their best since 1869, from 
the white race nations. That has been publicly acknowledged 
by the greatest Japanese soldier, General Nogi, who sacri¬ 
ficed his life in silent protest against such a civilization. It 
could not be otherwise; for the Japanese civilization is found¬ 
ed upon hatred, selfishness, and falsehood. According to the 
Japanese historians the clans of the South and West of Old 
Japan have been engaged in war with those of the North 
and East, from the tenth century A. D. till 1869, the com¬ 
batants hating each other fiercely, from generation to gen¬ 
eration, during nearly 900 years. When, in 1869, they made 
peace, it was only done to enable them to satisfy their more 
malignant hatred of the “white barbarians’’, by making war 
against them according to their secret anti-foreign policy. 
The vicious selfishness of the ruling class is also proven by 
history. From the rule of the Fujiwara Regents up to the 
present time, during more than 1000. years, greed for power, 
insatiable ambition, and avaricious desire for wealth, have 
been the leading characteristics of the nobility which ruled 
the country. And falsehood has, since mythical times, been 
the means used by the members of the nobility and priest¬ 
hood, during probably 2500 years, to keep the masses of the 
common people in ignorance, superstition, and political and 
economical slavery; while in modern Japan the same classes 
employ “the Philosophy of Falsehood” in an almost incredible 
manner, in order to deceive the foreign nations and their own 
people about the condition of Japan’s government, and the 
nature of her civilization. 

Under these circumstances it may well be asked: Is it 
advisable to let people who have been reared under such a 
civilization and cherish it, become a component part of a 
people who uphold the Christian civilization? And could, 
as the ruling class of Japan secretly wishes and plans, the 
future progress and well being of a large part of the human 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


341 


race be intrusted to a people whose Rulers have created the 
modern Japanese civilization? It would be a suicidal policy 
for any white race people to do so. For the hatred and false¬ 
hood upon which the present civilization of Japan is based 
renders it destructive. It is an immutable law of nature, 
proven to be so by the history of mankind, that love only 
can build up, while hatred destroys. Love betters the indi¬ 
vidual and leads to an higher culture; but hatred leads the 
individual to deeds of violence ending in murder, and nations 
into endless, ferocious wars. 

There are justifiable wars which in the future will prob¬ 
ably be prevented, but are presently yet necessary evils. 
There is no excuse, though, for wars waged only for con¬ 
quest, or to satisfy revenge and hatred. They are wholesale 
murder and the worst crimes a nation can become guilty of, 
for which in the end it will suffer self-destruction. Thus, 
the gigantic empires of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, the 
mightiest conquerors of historial times, collapsed after short 
existence. Yet these inhuman monsters who ravaged two 
Continents, and caused millions of unoffending men, women 
and children to be slaughtered and violated, have been chosen 
by the members of the ruling class of Japan as their proto¬ 
types. They believe they can emulate the military deeds of 
those Mongolian Tartar conquerors, and that, by means of 
the Shinto Cult and the present Japanese civilization, they 
will secure duration for the empire they intend to erect on 
the lands to be conquered on the North American Continent. 

The Ruling Powers of Japan would not foster such fal¬ 
lacious hopes, if their mental vision were not blinded by 
hatred. For their government and civilization are honey¬ 
combed by the germs of destruction planted there by their 
malignant passions. In fact, the internal commotions exist¬ 
ing, since the adoption of the Constitution of 1890, between 
the Satsuma and Choshiu members of the Privy Council and 


342 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


the leadings members of the other clans would, long ago, 
have become ruinous to the government, if the great hopes 
all of them have, since years, based upon the contemplated 
war with the United States and the consequent conquest of 
Alaska, had not compelled them to avoid any disruption of 
the government. But when they shall have achieved that 
purpose, the fight for the control of the supreme power will 
certainly be taken up again, and lead probably to a civil war 
between the members of the ruling class or to some change 
of the governemnt. Nor will the common people always 
remain in ignorance about the fraud practiced upon them 
by the teachings of the Shinto Cult. And when, some day, 
the deceived and ill-treated masses of the population shall 
learn the truth about their government, their patriotic en¬ 
durance will give way to savage deeds of violence and de¬ 
struction, as is customary with the low class Japanese in 
cases of great excitement. 


12. JAPANESE NEWSPAPERS BETRAY PRESENT 
POLITICAL SITUATION OF JAPAN 

It will be interesting to quote here a couple of insignifi¬ 
cant looking news-items taken from prominent Japanese news¬ 
papers, of March and April, 1914, which corroborate the 
foregoing statements about the antagonistic factors existing 
in the political life of Japan, and their probable future ten¬ 
dencies. The first of these items reads: 

“The famine in the Northeastern district of the 
country is not decreasing. In fact, it becomes worse, 
distressingly so. And if not sufficient help comes soon, 
it will grow to be a national calamity. Private indi¬ 
viduals have contributed half a million dollars, and 
transportation companies have brought food and cloth¬ 
ing at half their regular charges; but that is only a 
small part of the help needed. 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 343 

“ ‘The Nippon’ reports that the Vice-Minister of 
Education has allowed the common schools to be closed 
because the parents of the school children have no 

' means to procure their clothing and books, and the 

authorities have no money to pay the teachers their 
salaries. The prefectural officials cannot offer any help 
because the famine-stricken people of the district have 
not been able to pay their taxes. The gravity of the 
situation is disclosed in the recommendation of ‘The 

Nippon’ that the government, with the Diet now in ses¬ 
sion, devote some time and thought to measures of 

relief.” 

At the time when that was published by “The Nippon,” 
the Diet was considering a law reducing the tax on “busi¬ 
ness” two and three-fourths millions of dollars, and the in¬ 
heritance tax one million dollars. But the famine in the 
Northeastern district had, although well known to the Parlia¬ 
mentarians who belong almost exclusively to the ruling class, 
not been important enough to them to consider it. The sec¬ 
ond news-item was published in the Japanese paper in the 
form of a report about the inability of Viscount Kiyoura to 
form a cabinet in place of that of Count Yamamoto, who had 
resigned. The general content of the report is as follows: 

“All the political groups, as well-as the navy, have 
virtually gone on strike. The various progressive fac¬ 
tions declare that the constitution is not properly being 
observed, while the navy demands immediate advances 
of money for warship construction, and the appoint¬ 
ment of a sailor as minister of marine.” 

Most of the papers added, in criticism of the “Elderly 
Statesmen” of Satsuma and Choshiu, the members of the 
Privy Council, that they were “a still surviving remnant of 
Old Japan.” The contents of these two news-items show 
the existence of a political condition in Japan which can only 
be found under that country’s peculiar civilization and gov¬ 
ernment. The people of a large district are starving, since 


344 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


months, owing to ruined harvests, and humbly submit to their 
fate without a murmur, while the government seems to 
ignore the fact that a famine exists in part of the country. 
They lie down and die with wife and child, in the devout be¬ 
lief that one of the ancestors of their Emperor has ordained 
this punishment for some wrong done him, and that they 
must submit to the divine ordinance. While these unfortu¬ 
nates starve, because their district is so poor that it cannot 
pay its teachers, nor buy books for the children, or food for 
the hungry farmers, the Diet grants a reduction of millions 
of dollars to the two wealthiest classes of the population, 
and the naval officers demand immediate advances of money 
for the construction of more super-dreadnoughts for the 
coming war with the United States. These officers , are ad¬ 
herents of the “Elderly Statesmen” of the Privy Council, 
Japan’s Ruling Oligarchs, who are opposed by the House of 
Representatives and by the newspapers, as related herein 
before. 

Two facts are made quite apparent by these two news- 
items; firstly, that the Japanese government is still in the 
hands of the Privy Council which strains every nerve to get 
ready for war; and furthermore that the Ruling Powers are 
hated intensely by the leading men of the clans that are not 
represented in the Privy Council. P>ut presently the prom¬ 
ised acquisition of a wealthy province in America quiets the 
people, and the necessities of the governmental Authorities 
hold the dissatisfied members of the ruling class in check and 
prevent them from rebelling against the Privy Council. 
Whether this internal peace will prevail long enough, after 
their conquest of Alaska, to allow the Oligarchs to inaugu¬ 
rate their new policy of “saving the hundreds of millions of 
their East Asiatic race relatives” by opening North America 
to them, of course, nobody knows; the future alone can tell. 
Nor has any white person ever been informed by the gov- 


345 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

ernment of Japan about the manner in which it will carry 
out that policy. In the book mentioned heretofore entitled 
“Japan by the Japanese,” as whose authors twenty-seven of 
'the most prominent statesmen, admirals, generals, financiers, 
business-men, and teachers, and the Emperor himself, are 
named, the preface reads: 

“Japan has the advantage that the people can think 
as thoroughly as do the Orientals, and act on the result 
of her thoughts as decidedly as the Occidentals. 

“To no other race in the world, as far as can he 
seen at the present moment, have both these gifts been 
given. And, therefore, it may safely be said that the 
future of this remarkable nation, equipped ivith every 
element of perfection, pulsating with loyalty and patriot¬ 
ism, and thorough in every detail, cannot fail to be 
brilliant. 

“Just what it is that Jafian will accomplish, nobody 
who is not of Japanese blood can foretell!’ 

Captain Brinkley even, the journalistic confidant of the 
government, seemed to be unable to throw any light on 
Japan’s great future. He merely says, as quoted before: 

“A poor nation never has been great; Japan may 
succeed in filling her purse before the time comes to 
open it; but no resources now in sight definitely prom¬ 
ise such a result. All that can be said of her is that 

she has boundless ambition; that she has established her 

ability to reach great ends, and that she will certainly 
bid for a higher place than she has yet attained.” 

This quotation explains, indirectly, why Japan should 
conquer Alaska. The necessity to get out of her poverty, 

if she ever will reach an higher place among the nations, is 

well elucidated by Capt. Brinkley; and Alaska is the only 
country within reach of Japan, which when conquered* can 
render her, at once, immensely rich. But about the manner 
how she would attain to any greatness in the future, after 
having procured the needed wealth, the author of the quota¬ 
tion has nothing to say. 


346 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


But the Samurai writers, such as the Barons, Kentaro 
and Suyematsu, the Parliamentary leader Shimada, and Pro¬ 
fessor Nitobe, although spokesmen of the ruling class, have 
been less careful. Without intending to betray their political 
secrets, they have, in their humor for boasting which, since 
the Russian war, has become almost a national weakness, 
made many statements from which it is not difficult to draw 
correct conclusions about Japan’s future war policies. Thus, 
the repeatedly made declaration that Asia is not to be the 
field of Japan’s future aggressions is an indirect acknowl¬ 
edgement that America has been chosen for that purpose. 
And the public statement of a prominent member of Par¬ 
liament, that Japan has the great mission to act as “savior of 
the hundreds of millions of East Asiatic race relatives” leaves 
no doubt that the government plans the conquest of large 
tracts of agricultural land in the unpopulated part of North 
America for the homes of millions of Asiatics. That means 
the conquest of part of Canada, because Alaska has not agri¬ 
cultural land enough nor a suitable climate to make that ter¬ 
ritory a great farming country, while Canada’s Western prov¬ 
inces can easily support an agricultural population of hun¬ 
dred millions and more. From these data and other drip¬ 
pings of truth regarding Japan’s great future plans, to be 
gathered from the writings of Samurai authors, the manner 
in which the race ideals of the military nobility are to be 
realized can be roughly outlined. 


13. HOW THE RACE IDEALS OF JAPAN’S RULING 
CLASS ARE TO BE CARRIED OUT 

As stated before, it is the firm belief of the Ruling Oli¬ 
garchs and their followers and strategical advisers, that, when 
the Japanese get possession of Alaska, they will not have to 
give it up again, but remain there forever. In that case, ten 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


347 


years later, by 1925, Japan’s military and naval strength will 
be immense. For as her government was able, during the 
nine years of the country’s extreme poverty, from 1905 to 
1914, to build up its army and navy from comparatively small 
beginnings to such dimensions as to rival the military and 
naval forces of the greatest world-powers, it stands to rea¬ 
son that, during the next ten years, with a yearly income of 
several hundred millions dollars from the Alaska gold, cop¬ 
per, coal and other mines, the Japanese army and navy will 
be enlarged so as to outrank those of all the other great 
powers. 

Japan also has an advantage over all the foreign nations 
through the fact that none of them can develop their whole 
naval strength on the North Pacific Ocean. Every European 
Power has colonies to protect and alsd its home ports, and 
must retain warships for that purpose. Thus England needs 
her gigantic navy to protect herself in Europe, and also her 
possessions in America, Africa, Asia and Australia. Even 
the United States can not leave its Atlantic Coast and the 
Gulf States entirely unprotected in case of being engaged in 
a war on the Pacific Ocean and Coast. It must, for home 
protection in the East and South, keep torpedo-boats, de¬ 
stroyers, submarines, and some battleships in the Atlantic 
Ocean. It must also be pointed out here what may acci¬ 
dentally be of great importance, namely the fact that Jap¬ 
anese ships, when injured in a naval battle, can, if necessary, 
find all possible assistance outside of Japan, all along the 
American coast from the South boundary of the United 
States down to Cape Horn, except in the Panama Canal zone; 
and also in every Rusian and Chinese harbor on the coast 
of Asia. But crippled men-of-war of white race nations will 
look in vain for the same friendly reception in any Pacific 
Coast country ruled by the aborigines, as in Chile, Peru, 
Mexico, and others, whose governments have, since the Rus- 


348 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


sian war, been informed by Japan's Representatives, that she 
fights all the white race peoples interested on the Pacific 
Coasts, not only for herself but on behalf of the other races 
who are relatives of the Japanese. The seed of hatred thus 
sowed against the white race nations, especially the United 
States, has taken root in several places, and would bear poi¬ 
sonous fruit, if Japan were to succeed in another great war 
against a white race country. 

Prepared to meet any enemy on land or sea near Japan 
or Alaska, the Oligarchs may be expected, in 1925 (ten years 
after commencing their controversy with the United States 
about the American immigration laws) to make demands 
upon Canada regarding the admission of East Asiatic immi¬ 
grants. The dignity of the Japanese Empire which, through 
the possession of Alaska, makes its people one of the great 
American powers, will, in the opinion of their government, 
entitle not only the Japanese but all the members of their 
race, which includes the Chinese and natives of East India, 
to as much consideration as the people of Europe. The grant¬ 
ing, by the Dominion government, of this demand would 
mean the flooding of Western Canada with tens of millions 
of Chinese, Hindoo Indians, Koreans, and Japanese, who, like 
the European immigrants, would become citizens, and as such 
eligible to public office in any City or Province, and in the 
Dominion. Under the leadership of Japanese politicians these 
East Asiatics would soon control, politically, the whole West¬ 
erly part of Canada, and threaten to become the leading party, 
in the Dominion. This probability which, if carried out, 
would turn Canada into an East Asiatic colony, renders it 
impossible for the Canadian Authorities to throw down the 
legal bars which now neither allow an unlimited immigration 
of yellow race people, nor give any of them the right to be¬ 
come citizens. Nor wou^d England compel Canada to change 
these laws. 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 349 

Having thus failed to make a peaceable conquest of any 
part of the Dominion, the Rulers of Japan will declare that, 
as they are prevented from obtaining, by peaceable means, 
homes for their race-relatives who since centuries have, by 
their white race oppressors of Europe, especially of England, 
been reduced to want and starvation, the Japanese are there¬ 
by compelled, for humanity sake, to open North America to 
their unfortunate race-relatives by the same means—the force 
of arms—by which the white race nations of Europe, again 
especially of England, have opened North America to their 
white race relatives and almost extinguished the aboriginal 
owners, without having, up to the present time, been able 
to utilize the immense territory thus conquered. 

But before Japan will commence hostile operations, her 
cunning Rulers will create the same trouble for England in 
East India, which she is suspected of having caused between 
the United States and Mexico by promises made to the latter 
of help in case of war. As soon as the Oligarchs have de¬ 
cided to attack Canada and before declaring war, East India 
will rise in rebellion against England. It has • since years 
been known that Japanese agents have agitated in India, and 
promised the dissatisfied Indian conspirators Japan’s help, 
when the time shall be ripe for a general rising against the 
English oppressors. While Great Britain will be engaged, 
with all her military forces which are not needed for the de¬ 
fence of Old England, to suppress the Indian rebels who are, 
probably, led by Japanese strategists and other officers in 
their war, Japan will flood Canada with her Alaskan army 
in the Northwest, and assail British Columbia in the.South¬ 
west with troops transported from their Island homes under 
the protection of the Japanese super-dreadnoughts. 

That in the following war the Canadian forces of a few 
hundred thousand regulars and militia troops can not pre¬ 
vail against the millions of Japan’s well drilled soldiers which 


350 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


she can send there without any undue effort, is not to be 
doubted. Even if England were in a position to help Canada, 
she could not muster as many hundred-thousands of well 
drilled soldiers as Japan has millions. Nor will the latter’s 
fleet be in danger of getting vanquished by the limited num¬ 
ber of warships England can send to the Pacific Ocean to 
protect Canada. It is, therefore, highly probable—what the 
Japanese believe to be an indubitable certainty—that at the 
end of the war England will have lost East India to the 
natives, and to her former friend and ally, Japan, all that 
part of Canada lying West of Lake Superior and Hudson 
Bay and reaching up to the Arctic Sea, an empire with out¬ 
lets to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and large and produc¬ 
tive enough to support comfortably an hundred millions people. 

To open this country to the laboring and farming classes 
of China and East Asia, where they are safe against any 
oppression by the white race nations, being under the protec¬ 
tion of Japan, that is what Saburo Shimada meant when he 
wrote: 

“Japan desires to raise the positions of hundreds of 
millions of Oriental people, so that they may share the 
heavenly grace with the white race.” 

And in view of the benefit it will bring to the East Asi¬ 
atic countries, if they be relieved from the curse of overpop¬ 
ulation, and their people can prosper again economically, and, 
consequently, also politically, Shimada says: 

“If the millions and millions of the Orientals are 
destined to rise again, Japan will play the part of their 
savior. Nothing can be happier than to restore the race 
whose fate has been sealed for so many centuries.” 

There is no other country where Japan can carry out 
that promise, than on the immense territorial possessions of 
Western Canada. And it is no fantastic prediction that the 
conquest of that country by Japan will probably be the out- 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

come of a war between her and England in the near future. 
For, the prediction is based upon indisputable facts and log¬ 
ical reasoning, and deserves more credence than could have 
been claimed, in 1873, when Japan commenced to create a 
modern army and navy, for the prediction that, in thirty-one 
years, 400,000 men of their new military would attack, on 
Asiatic soil, and defeat in battle after battle, an army of 
600,000 Russian soldiers, and conquer in six months the, next 
to Gibraltar, most nearly impregnable fortifications of Port 
Arthur, while the inferior Japanese navy either destroyed or 
captured every Russian warship. No statesman or military 
officer of the United States, who would have foretold, in 
1873, such an extraordinary success of the Japanese army 
and navy, would have been taken seriously by anybody. And 
yet those great achievements of the Japanese arms have been 
accomplished, and proved the remarkable efficiency of the 
race as fighters on land and sea, and the extraordinary cun¬ 
ning of their leading statesmen. And before that war was 
over, the Emperor, and the most prominent statesmen, mili¬ 
tary and naval officers, teachers and business men of the 
country, announced in public print, in the English language 
so that the outside world could read it, “that the Japanese 
are the most perfect race and would, in the future, accomplish 
other remarkable feats of such an extraordinary character 
that none but of Japanese blood could conceive them.” 

That statement underrates the intelligence of the white 
race people. They have been misled, since 1868, about the 
character of the Japanese government and its secret plans, 
through the “Philosophy of Falsehood” upon which the Jap- 
ense civilization is based. But whoever knows the character 
of the low-class Samurai—the history of the wars between 
the leading men of the military class, together with the cun¬ 
ning, scheming, and treachery practiced by the combatants— 
the fraud underlying the present government for the purpose 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

of making it a gigantic military despotism—and has read the 
writings of the prominent Samurai authors of modern Japan, 
can not fail to discern what her ruling class plans for the 
future of their race, and for Japan. This planning for the 
future, not only years but decades ahead, is not customary 
among white race nations; because to hide such plans for a 
long time would require not only secretiveness, but also an 
high degree of falsehood and hypocrisy, two vices which only 
few white race statesmen will employ. In Japan, where these 
vices are, when used in the interest of the country’s policies, 
esteemed as virtues, the planning for the future is a national 
custom. As quoted hereinbefore, Baron Kentaro says in 
some of his political writings: 

“We always look ahead in search for something 
higher than our present condition for our descendants. 
Thus looking forward to our future, we constantly strive 
to mark out the ‘grand policy’ for a century to come. 
In order to establish that policy, the Japanese always 
study the problem with far-reaching foresight. This 
trend of mind is characteristic of our race.” 

Professor Nitobe has, in his book on “Bushido,” filled 
pages with his praise of the Japanese “sense of honor” which, 
as he claims, has been the cause of Japan’s progress. All 
that his people have achieved in modern times, in peace and 
in war, he attributes to their high feeling of honor. He ex¬ 
plains this in the following sentence: 

“The sense of honor which can not bear being 
looked down upon as an inferior power,—that was the 
strongest motive.” 

Capt. Brinkley has written, as stated hereinbefore, that 
the Japanese have “unbounded ambition.” If the latter word 
had been used by Nitobe instead of “honor,” his statement 
would be more correct. But even as it is, it indicates plainly 
the future achievements—the “grand policy” of Baron Ken¬ 
taro—which the Rulings Powers of Japan and their followers 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


353 


intend to carry out. They have not forgotten that, since 
the repulsion of the Mongolian invasion in the 13th century, 
the military class of Japan has considered their own race and 
people to be superior as fighters to all the other races and 
nations, which in their opinion, even now, is proof that they 
possessed an higher civilization. The fact that the Japanese 
Rulers were, in the 17th century, murdering the white race 
Christians without any European nation daring to interfere 
in behalf of their subjects (because, on account of the dis¬ 
tant location of Japan, they were unable to do so), created, 
at that time, in the members of the military class a strong 
feeling of contempt for the white race. And Japan’s victory 
over Russia has re-assured them of their superior valor as 
fighters in modern times. 

To re-establish, consequently, their race in the powerful 
position it once held in past ages, so that all the world must 
see and acknowledge it, that is the “grand policy” of Japan’s 
ruling class. To carry out this policy in Asia would be im¬ 
possible on account of the immense cost of a war of conquest 
there, as Japan has ascertained in 1904 and ’05. Besides 
that, it would alienate from them people who are race rela¬ 
tives and as revengeful as the Japanese, and would fight them 
for years. The Samurai writers have therefore exceptionally 
told the truth, when, as quoted before, they indignantly de¬ 
nied that Japan has any intention of getting up a Pan-Asiatic 
combination against the white race nations. But they did not 
add that America offered them, through the childlike confi¬ 
dence of the American people in the friendship of the Jap¬ 
anese and in the harmlessness of their tremendous war pre¬ 
parations, the best possible opportunity to carry out their 
“grand policy” of the future, in North America. 

The program of that policy, after the Japanese have 
obtained Alaska and Western Canada, and thus become 
neighbors of the people of the United States, will probably 


354 The Secrets of the Japanese Government 

have two parts. The Samurai hate the very looks of the pure 
white race people, because they, like the members of all the 
colored races, feel, at the sight alone of normal white men 
and women, that the latter are superior beings. That is a fact 
which can not be denied. No normal white man or woman 
will marry a colored person, if they are able to get a life- 
partner of their own race; while no normal colored man or 
woman would marry a person of their own race, if they 
could, possibly, get a white wife or husband. The Japanese 
Rulers will, therefore, as neighbors of the Americans, try to 
have miscegenation introduced between the Japanese and the 
white people in the United States, according to the idea ex¬ 
pressed by Shimada that ‘‘race differences disappear when the 
members of the different races are not any more living at 
great distances from each other.” It is an established fact 
known in Japan as well as elsewhere, that the offspring ot 
the mixed marriages generally inherit not only the color, but 
also the characteristics of the inferior race. And as the 
Japanese are more prolific than the white race Americans of 
mo 'em times, miscegenation would, after some generations, 
give the Japanese race a controlling interest in American po¬ 
litical and social life, which they would use, finally to over¬ 
come the white race, and supplant their civilization by that 
of. the Shinto Cult. 

If that effort, peaceably to Japanify the United States 
fails through the objection of the Americans, war will be re¬ 
sorted to, in which the Japanese expect to be victorious, be¬ 
cause they can get a superabundance of soldiers from Asia, 
while the Americans would have no assistance from anv 
other country, as most of the people living in Mexico and 
Central, and South America are race-relatives of the Japanese, 
who would glory in the extermination of the white race peo¬ 
ple on the American Continents. The rule of the Japanese 
over North America would, therefore, in their opinion, be a 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 355 

certainty, and gradually extended over the Islands in the 
Pacific and Indian Oceans, including New Zealand and Aus¬ 
tralia. Nor will France be allowed to keep her Chinese col¬ 
onies ; for the Japanese government has never forgiven that 
country the assistance it gave Russia, in 1895. 

The awakened Chinese and Indians will also assist in 
carrying out the race-ideals of the Samurai Oligarchs, by 
modernizing their armies and sweeping all the white race 
people who will not assimilate with the yellow races, from 
Africa, there in course of time to suffer and degenerate from 
Africa, there in course of time, to suffer and degenerate from 
the curse of over-population like, presently, the East Asi¬ 
atics; while the yellow race people and their relatives would, 
under the Japanese civilization, live and flourish on the other 
Continents, as the superior branch of the human family and 
the “Rulers of the World/’ 


14. CONCLUSION 

That is the future of the white and yellow races, as the 
ruling class of Japan, the former low class military retain¬ 
ers, wish and plan to shape it. For being, as they have an¬ 
nounced to the world, “equipped with every element of per¬ 
fection, pulsating with loyalty and patriotism, and thorough 
in every detail,” it is a matter of course that “their unbound¬ 
ed ambition” soars high, and that “they will conquer all 
obstacles and accomplish the impossible” in order to make 
their race the Rulers of the World. 

It is self-evident that the “brilliant deeds” necessary for 
the realization of the “grand future” which forms the race- 
ideal of the ruling class can only be accomplished by a 
series of wars. Yet men of the highest standing in Japan’s 
political life publish ecomiums on the love of peace of their 
Ruling Powers, and try to ridicule the idea that they might 


356 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


plan hostilities against their “American friends’’. It is their 
“Philosophy of Falsehood” which dictates these declarations 
of peace as became apparent, beyond any posible doubt, in 
June, 1914, when simultaneously in Tokyo and Washington, 
D. C., the two governments published their diplomatic cor¬ 
respondence regarding the California alien land law and the 
exclusion of Japanese emigrants from the United States. 

In the first Japanese letter, dated May 9th, 1913, the 
American government was told that “the California alien 
land law is unfair and discriminatory, directed against the 
Japanese government, and a violation of the latter’s treaty 
with the United States”. In the next letter, of June 4th, 
the Oligarchs complained that the American note of May 
19th “caused them grave disappointment and concern, because 
the Americans ignored the fact that, for the wrong done by 
the alien land law, not California but the United States were 
responsible to Japan”. The latter also stated that “the 
American law under which the Japanese are not eligible to 
citizenship is mortifying to the government and people of 
Japan, and hurtful to their national susceptibilities”. 

In a letter of August 26th, 1913, the Japanese govern¬ 
ment threw off all restraint and said: “The California land 
law is a discrimination of the most marked and invidious 
character against Japan, —unjust and inequitable—contrary 
to the letter and spirit of the treaty of 1911,—at variance 
with the precepts of good neighborhood,—and mortifying to 
the nation of Japan; that this constituted the gravamen of 
Japan’s complaint, while the American government’s notes 
contained nothing which answers fundamentally to that 
complaint”. The letter concluded as follows: “ Japan claims 

for its subjects fair and equal treatment. Jt is unable to 
acquiesce in the unjust and obnoxious discrimination com¬ 
plained of, or to regard the question as closed as long as 
the existing state of things is permitted to continue.” 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


357 


On June 10th, 1914, the Japanese Ambassador handed 
to Secretary of State W. J. Bryan a copy of “instructions” 
received from the Tokyo foreign office, which state “that the 
Japanese government, believing that the projected treaty with 
the United States would tend to create new difficulties, is 
disinclined to continue the negotiations looking to the conclu¬ 
sion of a convention on the lines of the project which has 
been under discussion, and that it looked now for an answer 
to the Japanese note of August 26th iast, hoping that in a 
renewal of the study of the case a fundamental solution of 
the question at issue may be found”. 

To express the situation in a few words: Japan which, 
only a few weeks previous to the delivery of this note, had 
concluded an arbitration treaty with the United States, will 
not arbitrate the immigration or alien land law question, will 
not discuss it, even, in direct opposition to the example set 
by the great white race nations which allow each govern¬ 
ment to determine for itself who shall be admitted to its 
country as immigrants and allowed to become citizens ana 
land owners. Thus Russia’s refusal to admit persons of a 
certain religion, the objection of the United States to receive 
men with revolutionary tendencies, and the prohibitory legis¬ 
lation lately adopted by British Columbia against foreign 
workingmen, even those coming from English colonies,-- 
none of these exclusion laws are considered by any civilized 
white race people as an offense against their governments 
and nationalities. 

Japan’s government alone forms an exception. It can^ 
the action of the United States in excluding Japanese labor¬ 
ers, and the legalization of the California alien land act “an 
unfair, inequitable, unjust, obnoxious, and invidious dis¬ 
ci imination”, thus using language in its official notes to the 
American government which, according to civilized usage, 
would be considered rude and insulting in conversation or 


358 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


correspondence between private individuals. And the im¬ 
moderate language of the Japanese Oligarchs becomes threat¬ 
ening and swaggering—like that which they used as young 
Samurai in challenging an hated adversary to mortal com¬ 
bat—when they write to the great American nation that “the 
discrimination the latter makes against Japanese subjects is 
mortifying to the government and people of Japan, hurtfid 
to their national susceptibilities, and that their Imperial gov¬ 
ernment is unable to acquiesce in it, and considers it to be 
the duty of the United States to grant the demands of the 
Japanese for the same rights and privileges as those enjoyed 
by the members of the white race nations of Europe”. 

There was a time when such a correspondence addressed 
by any foreign nation to the United States government woulu 
have been immediately returned as unfit to be received, be¬ 
cause the insulting threat of war is plainly to be read between 
the lines of those notes. But the “Philosophy of False¬ 
hood”, by which the Japanese officials have, with their 
reverential politeness and assurances of peacefulness, ever 
since 1869, deceived the Americans in Washington, D. C., 
and throughout the country, and caused their firm belief in 
the friendship of the Japanese government, while the latter 
was indefatigably preparing its people for the coming con¬ 
flict with the United States,—that treacherous falsehood is 
still employed to hide Japan's belligerent intentions, and with 
the same success. In the month of June, 1914, in which the 
Japanese notes and final demands were published, by the 
request of the Ambassador, in the United States, the govern¬ 
ment of Japan sent two of its men-of-war, the training 
squadron, to the American Pacific Coast on a “friendly visit’'. 
In one of the harbors where they stayed ten days and took 
part in a series of festivities arranged in their honor, the 
like of which has never, in the same locality, been offered to 
any American or other man-of-war, the leading newspaper 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


359 


expressed the feelings of the population in an editorial as 
follows: 


WELCOME TO THE JAPANESE. 

“The city joins with the Japanese residents in ex¬ 
tending a welcome to the Vice-Admiral Kurio and the 
veterans of the Japanese training squadron. 

“It is an auspicious event when these trained war¬ 
riors from the other side of the Pacific visit the near¬ 
est American port, and bring with them expressions of 
cordial friendship and amity toward the American 
people. 

“That feeling is one which the people of the United 
States can and do reciprocate. 

“Therefore, the presence of the Japanese warships 
and their distinguished commander is an occasion call¬ 
ing for the sincerest felicitations among Americans and 
of equally sincere congratulations toward their Japanese 
neighbors and friends.” 

About the contents of the notes exchanged between the 
two governments the same paper said editorially only: 

“The California alien-land question breaks out 
afresh by the publication of the full correspondence 
between Uncle Sam and the Mikado.” 

These two short editorials indicate the prevailing senti¬ 
ments of the American government and people regarding 
Japan, and prove that her Samurai Rulers and their followers 
have, so far, planned very successfully. Their “Philosophy 
of Falsehood” has, with the aid of Japan’s isolated location, 
deceived the outside world since 1868. But in this enlight¬ 
ened age the He cannot prevail forever. The truth will out! 
It has herein been shown by unimpeachable evidence that, in 
1868, a number of low class military retainers — Samurai — 
some of whom were notorious murderers of white race for¬ 
eigners, and incendiaries, have usurped the supreme political 
power of Japan by taking, in time of peace, by force and 
violence, possession of the person of the Mikado, and kept 


360 


The Secrets of the Japanese Government 


possession of him, the successor to the Throne, and the gov¬ 
ernment ever since. They have deceived their lawful Sover¬ 
eign, their people, and the outside world by claiming to 
have, in 1868, “restored” the ancient monarchial government, 
while in fact they have founded a secret Samurai Oligarchy, 
now called the Privy Council, which has, by means of the 
Shinto Cult as the state religion, and through the support of 
the officers of the army and navy, and the high civil officials 
—most all members of the old Samurai class—turned Japan 
into a gigantic fighting machine. The war preparations made 
by this fraudulent government, together with the fanatical 
teachings of Shintoism, and the anti-foreign and war policy 
adopted in 1869 by the ruling powers, have created a “Jap¬ 
anese peril” which threatens not only the United States and 
Canada, but all the white race nations interested on the 
Pacific Ocean, and the peace of the world. 

The most subtle perversion of historical facts, which .the 
Samurai class may yet invent will not disprove the truth of 
the above statements about the fraudulent government of 
Japan, and its treacherous anti-foreign and war policies. 
And the sooner the United States government will, in view 
of. that truth, throw off the hypnotic spell under which it 
believes in the friendship of the Samurai Oligarchs of 
Japan and, without delay, arm the country in order to pre¬ 
vent any Japanese invasion, the greater will be the service 
thereby rendered to the American people and all the white 
race nations who should, after the restoration of peace in 
Europe, join hands at the next Hague Peace Conference 
and force the Japanese people to establish a civilized govern¬ 
ment, which must disarm , and lead its misled and deceived 
subjects to prosperity by means of the peaceful pursuits of 
life taught by the Christian civilization. 

The End. 
































































































































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